


Fear Death by Water

by St_Salieri



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blindness, Gen, Horror, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt Sam Winchester, Season/Series 07, Supernatural and J2 Big Bang Challenge 2012
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-14
Updated: 2012-06-14
Packaged: 2017-11-25 09:47:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/637606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/St_Salieri/pseuds/St_Salieri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean and Sam take a break from their search for the Leviathans to investigate a series of deaths in a small town in New Mexico.  A confrontation with the killer leaves Dean blinded.  He must find a way to cope with the aftermath and deal with the extra "gift" he has been given, a gift that threatens to expose Sam's worst fears.  Spoilers up through episode 7.10.</p><p>Please see the <a href="http://eyestoowide.livejournal.com/47699.html">Art Post</a> by the wonderful eyestoowide!</p><p>Written for SPN/J2 Big Bang 2012.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Day Nine

 

 

The fabric of the bedspread is rough under his fingertips, a sign of too many washings in cheap detergent. Dean mindlessly traces his fingers across the material, back and forth and back and forth across the terrain of loose threads and tiny holes. When he realizes what he's doing, he forces himself to stop, clenching the material in his fist while he listens to the sounds of his brother typing away at the small desk on the other side of the room.

The room is overly warm after baking in the heat of the desert sun all afternoon. The temperature outside had actually dropped dramatically once the sun went down – not that they could really appreciate it with windows that wouldn't open, courtesy of the finest in modern motel safety procedures. Dean turns his head to listen to the cool breeze brushing past the windows like an exhale and contemplates making his way outside to get some fresh air. It's tempting – he can almost see himself sitting on the hood of the car, legs stretched out in front and head tilted back to let the wind dry the sweat from his throat....

Except that this is a new room, and he isn't a hundred percent sure where the door is. He can't stand the thought of stumbling through the darkness with outstretched hands like a little kid who can't find the light switch, not even for the promised relief of a cool breeze. And sure, Sam would help – fucking Sam, always trying to _help_ – but that would only make things worse.

In the end, it's easier to just stay where he is and drink the beer Sam had handed him half an hour ago. It's disgustingly lukewarm by now, the condensation on the sides long since evaporated away. It isn't nearly enough – he'd need about a dozen of them to start feeling the relief he craves – but it's better than nothing.

The sound of fingers on the keyboard stops. Dean shifts uneasily, wondering if Sam is looking at him. Isn't this the kind of thing he should be able to tell? After everything the two of them have been through, after all the time they have spent living in the closest of quarters, shouldn't he have some kind of sixth sense about this thing? A few weeks ago, he would have sworn that the answer was yes. Now, he isn't so sure.

"Are you sure you don't want me to try to get another room?"

So Sam _is_ watching him. Good to know.

"Dude, I told you I don't care about the TV," Dean says heavily. "It's fine."

It's their usual lack of luck that the room has a busted TV, but the thought of going to the manager for another room is exhausting. He can't help seeing his brother in his head, speaking to the manager with that earnest look on his face he does so well, all raised eyebrows and wrinkled forehead. _It's for my blind brother, you see. He really likes to have it on in the background, so if you could help us out...._

"It's fine," Dean says again, trying to make it true.

The fact is, the background noise _does_ ground him in the space, keeps him from sinking too deep into his own thoughts. But the fact that Sam has noticed his reliance on it is reason enough for Dean to pass on the offer.

Sam sighs heavily, and Dean listens to the soft rasp of stubble as Sam scrubs at his face. "Well, I've read this site three times, and it still doesn't make any sense. I think I'm going to go out and grab some coffee – shouldn't take me more than a few minutes. You need anything?"

"Sam, don't be stupid." The words come out more harshly than Dean meant, and he gives an apologetic wince. "Look, you need to get some sleep," he says, trying for gentle. "It's been, what...two days? And you've barely slept since then."

The long pause makes Dean wonder whether Sam is trying to count up the hours. "I don't need a lot of sleep," Sam says quietly. "Really, it's okay."

"Well, too bad, because I'm telling you to take a nap," Dean says, trying for the Older Brother Voice that hasn't worked on Sammy since he was about twelve. "Dude, you have to drive tomorrow. At this rate, I'd be safer behind the wheel than you."

The weak laugh from Sam isn't much, but it's pretty much the response Dean had been hoping for. He listens to Sam close the lid on the laptop and settle down heavily on the other bed. Dean sets the empty beer bottle on the side table, only fumbling it a little bit, and flinches when Sam's hand closes around his wrist unexpectedly.

"Sorry," Sam says. "Just...I'll be on your right side, about two feet away. The bathroom's to the left. If you stay along the wall, you shouldn't have any problems. There's a trashcan, but I moved it under the...."

Dean scowls and grabs his hand back. "I'm not a little kid, Sam," he bites out. "I can handle it."

"Sorry," Sam says again, more quietly, and Dean kind of wants to hit him. Wants Sam to yell at him, try to take him down, anything but this tentative, apologetic niceness. He'd thought they were past that.

He'd also thought he was past treating Sam like a punching bag, and look how well that's turning out.

"Thanks, Sammy," he finally says. "I know you're just trying to help, I just...you know."

"Yeah," Sam says. "I know."

Then he throws one of his pillows in Dean's face. Dean bats it away with a squawk, but he can't help grinning.

"Seriously," Sam says, yawning, "wake me up if anything happens. And try to get some sleep yourself. Promise me?"

"Yeah, sure," Dean says, not really meaning it. He knows Sam sees right through him, but Sam just grunts. Dean hears the springs in the bed squeak as Sam reaches out to click off the light on the low table that sits between the beds.

Even though the lack of light makes no difference at all to Dean, there's something so ominous about the sound of the click that he's halfway trying to come up with an excuse to keep the light on when he realizes that the deep breathing coming from the other bed means that Sam has fallen asleep.

"Sweet dreams," Dean whispers, hoping for once that his words come true. He gingerly lies back on his own pillow and stares up at the invisible ceiling above.

It should be easy to sleep – he hasn't exactly been getting his fair share either – but the lack of white noise from the television just makes him hyper-focused on Sam's soft breaths. He tries to match his own to them, then tries counting back from a thousand. By the time he reaches three hundred and eighty, he's no more tired than when he'd started. His hands twitch, too full of nervous energy after yet another day of sitting around on his ass, and at this point he'd sell his damn soul again for the ability to go out and drive himself to the nearest bar and drink until it stops mattering.

And then he realizes that he can see the ceiling above him.

It's cracked and dirty, no different than the thousands of motel ceilings he's seen over the years, except that it's lit with a soft red glow. Dean screws his eyes shut and holds his breath, but when he opens them again the scene is still there. Gingerly, his heart hammering in his throat, he turns his head to the right.

Sam lies fast asleep on his own bed, long legs hanging off the end and fists balled beneath his chin. His face is pale and drawn, exhaustion darkening the thin skin below his eyes. As Dean watches, Sam frowns in his sleep and twitches, arms pulling in even tighter to his own body. The glow of light is stronger now, a lurid red that makes the room look as if it has been washed with blood. Dean's breath speeds up, knowing what's coming, knowing that Sam would want to be woken up, but he can't bring himself to do it. The kid needs sleep, no matter how much he says he doesn't.

And then Sam's bed bursts into flames, and it's all Dean can do not to jump to his feet and pull his brother off the bed and to the door. The only reason he doesn't is because he knows it won't make the slightest bit of difference. He sees the flames catch on Sam's pillow and turns his head away, unable to watch further.

He almost screams aloud to see Sam slouched in a chair on the left side of his bed.

Sam's head hangs down, face hidden behind the fall of his hair, and he holds a knife in his right hand. Slowly, methodically, he carves lines into the palm of his left hand. Blood drips silently through his fingers, and Dean can almost taste the salt and iron on his tongue. The crackle of the flames is even louder now, and Dean has to swallow hard against the tightness of his throat.

"Sammy?"

Sam raises his head, and Dean almost wished he hadn't when he sees the ruin of his brother's face. Half of Sam's teeth are missing, along with one of his eyes. A lurid gash runs from his right temple to the top of his lip, deep enough that the wound pulls apart and Dean can see the white of bone near his scalp line. Sam stares at him with his one good eye and frowns before going back to pulling the knife across his palm.

Even expecting it, the horror is almost too much. Dean rolls over and buries his face in the pillow, letting out a dry sob.

"Shit," he mutters. "Shit shit shit."

He lets himself have the one long moment of self-pity, cursing a universe that would allow him to see the wreck of his baby brother like this, before pushing the despair aside behind a rush of righteous anger. He is Dean Motherfucking Winchester, and he does not lie on his bed and cry like a baby.

Clenching his jaw, Dean shoves himself into a sitting position and faces the bloodied form of Sam. Sam raises his head again, regarding him with a vague, dumb curiosity that is such a sick mockery of his normal sharp intelligence that Dean's resolve almost crumbles.

"Sam," he says steadily. "Do you know who I am?"

Sam blinks one eye and tilts his head to the side. "Brother," he says finally, voice slurred. "I killed you."

The shivers running up his spine are an almost constant occurrence now, one long shake that rattles his bones, and Dean does his best to tune them out.

"Yes," he says. "I'm your brother. But you didn't kill me. Sam, do you hear me? You didn't kill me."

If Sam understands him, he gives no sign. Instead, he gives Dean a hideous mockery of a smile and raises the knife to his own throat.

"Sam, no! _Sam!_ "

Blood pours from Sam's throat and spatters on the dirty carpet. The chair Sam is sitting on erupts in flame, causing Dean to flinch back instinctively. He cries aloud, using his own voice to drown out the screams of the figure in the chair burning alive. The sights and sounds and smells are overpowering, and just as Dean is wondering if this is it, if this is the time he loses his own fucking mind, the room is plunged into blessed darkness.

 


	2. Days One - Two

_Eight days earlier..._

 

The newspaper lands on his plate with a thud, just missing his cup of coffee. Dean glares up at Sam and snatches his coffee closer.

"Hey!"

Sam ignores him, settling into the other side of the booth and nodding at the waitress who comes up to them with a coffee pot. She drops a menu in front of Sam and fills his mug before walking to one of the other tables. Sam takes a long sip and pokes the newspaper closer to Dean.

"Page three, left side," he says before grabbing up the breakfast menu for a quick look. It doesn't take either of them longer than about twenty seconds to choose their meals these days. After years spent on the road, every diner starts to look the same. Besides, Dean knows that Sam always gets the pancakes these days.

"So what am I looking for?" Dean asks, setting aside his coffee and turning to page three. Between the real estate ads and obituaries is a small article mentioning that Alice Garver, age fifty-three, has been found dead at home. The picture included with the article shows a tiny adobe house, weathered on the outside and surrounded by a few dusty shrubs. At least three police cars are in front of the house, and one of the officers is caught in the act of winding caution tape around the posts that bracket the front door. Dean tosses the paper down and gives Sam an exasperated look. "Really?"

"I know what you're thinking," Sam starts, pulling his laptop out of his bag and opening it up on the table.

"Are you sure about that?" Dean mutters, taking another sip of coffee, but Sam plows ahead.

"It seems like it's not our thing, right? A single death, no mention of foul play...probably a heart attack or something. Except that that's an awful lot of cops for a middle-aged woman found dead in her own home, you know? So I got curious and did a little checking. And can I just tell you that local law enforcement seriously needs to update their security software?" Sam spins the laptop to face Dean and points a finger at the screen. "It's the third unexplained death in the last ten days, which is pretty unusual for a town this size."

"Town where?" Dean interrupts. "Where is this place?"

"It's about an hour or so outside of Albuquerque," Sam says, and it comes out in a rush, as if he's hoping that Dean won't pay attention to the words if he speaks them quickly enough. "And the weird thing is..."

"No," Dean says firmly. "That's halfway across the freaking country. It would take us a whole day just to get there. And we've got more important business here."

Sam takes a deep breath and clenches his jaw, clearly gearing up for round eighty-seven of the never-ending battle over What Dean and Sam Should Do Next. It's been going nonstop since Bobby died, and Dean for one is heartily sick of the whole thing. He knows what Sam thinks of him – that he's obsessed with revenge, that he has nothing but Dick Roman on the brain, that he's getting stupidly self-destructive over the whole thing.

The worst part is that Sam doesn't fucking get it on a gut level, and if anyone should get it, it's Sam. The idea of turning away a lead, no matter how slim, to the monsters that killed Cas and Bobby – killed his _family_ – is completely anathema to everything Dean is. And if Sam doesn't understand that...well, maybe the two of them are even further apart than he'd thought. And that thought is probably the most depressing one he's had in a month of depressing thoughts.

It got ugly the last time they argued, Sam trying for the _do you really think this is what Bobby wanted for you?_ tack, and Dean accusing him of not really caring about Bobby's death. It was the lowest of low blows, and he took the punch Sam gave him without complaint as an apology. And the worst of it is, it isn't like Sam was entirely wrong. Dean isn't a complete moron – he knows that his obsession with tracking down Roman and his crew is turning him into...well, into John Winchester, and isn't _that_ a scary thought. Their search hit the point of diminishing returns a few weeks ago, and without new leads they're basically spinning their wheels.

Besides, if Sam is right that this is something up their alley, it would be a goddamn relief to fight something that he's actually capable of beating again. The thought of maybe saving a couple of people as a bonus doesn't give him the rush it used to – nothing much does, these days – but it's something. And the way their lives are right now, Dean will take all the something he can get.

Hell, maybe a change will be good for Sam too. The kid has been developing bags under his eyes lately. Not that he's talking to Dean about it, but in fairness Dean hasn't exactly been asking either. The whole fucked-up business inside of Sam's head makes him sick to think about too much, bringing a lingering, sour sadness that eats away at his stomach lining like Bobby's rotgut moonshine. It's the helplessness, more than anything – nothing Dean can do, no weapon he can wield or spell he can say that will dispel that haunted look Sam gets on his worst days. And Sam's dealing – he's probably the toughest guy Dean knows, a credit to the Winchester training of Deal With Your Shit, No Complaints, but watching him try to deal wears away at Dean's psyche.

Ignoring it and hoping it will get better on its own maybe isn't the healthiest way of dealing, but it's all Dean has these days.

"Okay," Dean says, before Sam has been able to do more than generate a pissed-off look. Sam blinks at him dumbly.

"Okay?"

"No promises. Just...show me what you've got." Dean holds up a finger and gestures the waitress over. " _After_ breakfast."

The smile that lights up Sam's face makes his capitulation worth it.

The morgue is shabbier than some Dean has been in, but at least it's impeccably clean. A long metal examination table takes up most of the main floor space, with three refrigeration units tucked along the back wall. A wooden desk is set into a corner, its surface overflowing with folders and paperwork. The air smells of chemicals and disinfectant, the ever-present undercurrent of death and decay lingering like the remains of a bad dream. Dean tugs at his tie and fingers the thin wallet that holds his fake credentials du jour. Five minutes after he flashed the damn thing and he can't even remember his alias. Fuck, he needs to get his head in the game.

"What's the doctor's name again?" he asks Sam, who is busy prowling the perimeter of the room.

"Dr. Felicia Cortes," Sam says absently, inspecting a sample jar holding God only knows what. "Apparently she'd already left for the day, so they had to call her in."

"Well, we could have been here earlier if someone hadn't fucked up his navigation duties," Dean can't help pointing out. Sam just looks sour.

"Swear to God, Dean, if you make one more 'left turn at Albuquerque' joke, I'm gonna...."

He breaks off when a middle-aged woman comes jogging into the room, slightly out of breath. She can't be more than five feet and change, and her short dark hair is pulled neatly back in a clip. She gives them both a quick smile, sharp eyes taking them both in at a glance, and shakes her head.

"Sorry to keep you waiting. You're the federal agents?"

Sam takes over the introduction duties as usual, holding up his badge dutifully and then giving her his hand to shake. "Agents Gibbons and Hill, yes. Nice to meet you, Dr. Cortes." He looks comically large next to her, and Dean once again marvels at Sam's ability to sort of shrink in on himself and look friendly and unthreatening when he needs to. "You did the autopsies on the three victims, right?"

She nods and walks over to one of the refrigeration units, opening the door and pulling out a tray. The shape of a body is clearly visible under the white cloth, and Dean braces himself for the ritual uncovering he knows is about to take place. Over the years he's dealt with corpses in every possible state of ruin and decay, but there's something about seeing the remains of a human body in the clinical sterility of a morgue that still puts him off his feed. Sam, the freak, crowds closer to get a better look.

"Alice Garver was the third," Dr. Cortes says, pulling back the cloth to reveal a nondescript woman with graying red hair and the kinds of wrinkles that come from a life lived outdoors in the desert sun. A row of staples march across her chest, marking the place where the autopsy incision has been closed. Dean can't help searching her face, wondering what she had seen, where she is now. Did she die in fear? Is she at peace? Or is her spirit wandering familiar rooms, growing more angry and violent by the day? This is why unburned corpses give him the creeps – there's too much unknown and unsettled about them.

"That's right," Dr. Cortes is saying, clearly in response to something Sam had asked her. Dean gives himself a shake and forces himself to pay better attention. "Anthony Delgado was about nine days ago, and Christine Henry last Wednesday. No medical ailments in common that I can find, no family connection, nothing. Delgado was sixty-two, had some minor arthritis, and Henry was a diabetic. She was twenty. Garver had no medical complaints at all."

"Except for the lack of a heart," Sam points out, and Dr. Cortes nods.

The missing heart was the trigger Sam had been looking for after his suspicions sent him hacking through local law enforcement's database. The three deaths looked peaceful on the surface – it appeared that each person went to bed as usual and fell asleep. And then, sometime during the night, something had removed their hearts. There was no sign of foul play – hell, there was no sign at all that anything was wrong until the first autopsy had uncovered the complete absence of a vital organ. There were no signs of struggle, no wounds, nothing. The three people in question simply went to sleep and never woke up.

"I still can't come up with an explanation for that." She sounds so apologetic, as if her professional reputation is at stake, that Dean has a bizarre desire to comfort her. _Don't worry about it. It was a creature of some kind – ghoul, demon, monster, something like that. There's nothing you could have done. Yeah, monsters. It's kind of a thing._ He knows this will haunt her – how could it not? – but there's nothing he can do about that. It's just one more small way in which the supernatural fucks over someone's life. The rock is thrown into the water, and the ripples just spread and spread and spread....

Dean coughs when Sam elbows him and gives him a _pay attention, you moron_ look. "Sorry," he says. "So there was nothing at all you found during your examination?"

Dr. Cortes shrugs. "Whatever removed the heart, it was a clean cut – so clean I can't match it to any known instrument. Of course, that leaves aside the question of how they were able to remove the heart without cutting through the chest wall or abdomen. I looked everywhere for an incision and couldn't find anything. Hell, I even speculated that someone who was driven enough might be able to make use of one of the body's already existing openings to somehow drag the heart out of there, but there's no sign of that either. No trauma at all."

Sam swallows. "And by 'already existing openings', you mean...?"

"The usual," she says briskly. "Mouth and nostrils would be the most obvious ones. Anus and vagina...theoretically possible, if you're really motivated and have access to some imaging equipment. I suspect the ears would be out." Sam looks heartily sorry he asked, and Dean can't help a sympathetic grin.

"And there's nothing natural that could cause this?" he asks, just to round out the types of questions she would be expecting from a federal agent. He's already pretty damn sure that this is no natural phenomenon, and he isn't surprised when she shakes her head.

"No, and thank God for that. A creepy heart-stealing bad guy freaks me out a lot less than some bizarre new virus that disintegrates the main cardiovascular organ without a single other symptom. Bad guys you can catch. And...you will catch him, right?" Uncertainty enters her voice for the first time. "Alice Garver grew up the next street over from me."

"I'm sorry," Sam says immediately, always so much better with the easy sympathy than Dean could ever hope to be.

She shrugs. "We weren't all that close. Friend of a friend, you know? She was a few grades ahead of me in school, so we never quite hung out with the same people. But still...it's different when it's someone you know."

The car makes a grinding noise as Dean turns the engine over, and he winces. As much as it pains him to admit it, it simply isn't a smart idea to spend their money on repairs. He'll give their current piece of junk a month tops before they have to ditch it and steal something else.

"So, pretty much what we expected," Sam says as they pull away from the curb and make their way toward the late Alice Garver's house. The sun set an hour ago, and the breeze carries a hint of frost. Dean shivers in his formal suit jacket, hating that they had parked in sight of the morgue and he hasn't had an excuse to change into his coat. It's dark enough now that the mountains on the horizon are hidden from view.

"Yup," Dean agrees, watching the street signs. "No signs of violence, so that rules out something like a werewolf. And I didn't see any suspicious markings or tattoos. No sulfur, either. You notice anything?"

Sam shakes his head. "Nothing. I don't know, it doesn't feel like a demon to me. Maybe when we check her house we'll find something."

The small adobe house looks almost exactly as it had in the newspaper photograph, minus the police tape. Dean pulls the car up to a stop across the street – near enough that they'll be able to get to it quickly in case they need a fast exit, but not right out front in an obvious _hi, we're breaking into a dead woman's house_ kind of way.

It's second nature to hand Sam the flashlight and let him keep watch while Dean picks the front lock. It gives easily, and in less than twenty seconds they're both inside. By unspoken agreement, they draw the blinds to avoid advertising their presence.

The small home is tidy – or, as tidy as it can be after police and paramedics have been through the place. There's nothing immediately off about it that sends Dean's sixth sense tingling, but that doesn't necessarily mean much. As much as he trusts his gut, he knows that it isn't infallible. He waves Sam over to the bookcase and decides to start at the desk.

"You got anything?" he asks after a few minutes of silent searching, and he hears Sam give a frustrated grunt in reply.

"Nothing I can see," Sam answers. "No books on the occult, no hidden sigils, nothing even particularly New Age-y. You?"

"I'm gonna check the bedroom. That's where she died, right?"

The bedroom looks barely large enough for the queen bed that takes up most of the middle of the room. It's an ornate affair, with a carved headboard and canopy supported by four tall posters – too large for the space, but clearly a much-loved piece. Unfortunately, from Dean's perspective, it's the most interesting thing in the room. A quick glance shows no painted or carved hieroglyphics, and there is no trace of sulfur near the windows. By the time Sam joins him, the room is feeling positively claustrophobic.

"How was she found?" Sam asks suddenly.

"Uh...on the bed?"

"No, I mean...she lived alone, right? How did they know to look for her?"

Dean scratches his jaw. "If I'm remembering right, the file said that she never showed up at work. A friend of hers there called in to the police with a welfare check. They saw her body through the bedroom window and broke in. Door locked from the inside, nothing disturbed, the usual. What about the other two? Did they live alone?"

Sam blinks. "I think so. Why, do you think it's important?"

Dean shrugs. "Hard to say. This case is pretty damn light on the clues, so at this point anything could be important."

He drops to his knees to check under the bed just in case, but it's just as nondescript as the rest of the house. When he stands back up, Sam is studying the canopy thoughtfully.

"What do you make of that?" he asks.

Dean follows his gaze upward, and it takes him a moment to realize that what he had initially taken for printed fabric is actually a display of flowers spread over the white of the canopy. Delicate purple bell-shaped blossoms are twined around branches that carry bright orange-yellow flowers that look like fireworks caught mid-explosion. Whoever had placed the flowers had obviously spent time on the arrangement, even if Dean can't really see the point of it.

"Pretty?" he offers. "Not really my favorite bedroom decoration, but whatever. Why, are you seeing something I don't?"

Sam frowns and reaches up to finger one of the yellow blossoms. "I think this is witch-hazel," he says slowly.

Dean feels a shiver run up his back. "You mean, witch-hazel as in...witches?" Because yeah, witches could totally handle the whole heart-removal mystery. Man, his day is just getting more and more awesome.

"Not necessarily," Sam says, "although a definite possibility. I don't know, man. It's not much to go on..."

"...but it's all we've got right now," Dean agrees. He frowns and studies the flowers more closely, running his finger across one of the purple blossoms. "And I think you may be right, Sam. Alice Garver died...what is it now, four days ago?"

"Yeah. Almost five. Why?"

Dean draws back his hand and shows Sam the drops of dew on the pad of his finger.

"I don't see any wilted flowers, do you? No dead ones on the bed or the floor. These things look like they were cut, like, five minutes ago. Now, I'm no florist, but unless someone's been sneaking in here to replenish the flowers over the bed of a dead woman..."

Sam nods, his eyes lighting up. "Out in the open air like that? These should have died off days ago."

Keeping his eyes on the flowers, Dean draws his EMF reader from his pocket and holds it up near the canopy. A few feet from the blossoms, the meter reacts wildly.

"I'd say that's a definite yes," Dean mutters, pocketing the meter and pulling out a small knife. "I'm gonna get a sample of these flowers. Sam, check the file and find out where the other two victims lived. We should stop by, see if all of them have the same signature."

The motel they're staying at is actually a few steps up from being a total dive, which is a nice change of pace. Prices are low enough in the area that they don't have to go with whatever rat-trap is the cheapest. The bathroom even has little complimentary bottles of shampoo, an unheard of luxury that Dean takes full advantage of since it's Sam's turn to clean the weapons.

As expected, Sam is busy in front of the laptop when Dean finishes with his shower. Scraps of purple and yellow blossoms litter the table in front of him. The flowers had been found at all three of the crime scenes, just as fresh and unwithered as they were at Alice Garver's home.

Dean pulls on a fresh t-shirt and collapses into the chair opposite Sam, who gives him a sharp look and immediately looks away. It takes Dean a second to realize that he's pulled out his flask – pulled out _Bobby's_ flask – and taken a long sip. It should probably bother him more that it isn't something he had consciously planned on doing, but he can't really bring himself to care. At least Sam has stopped with the pointed comments about his drinking after Bobby's death, as if realizing the futility. Not that Sam is doing much better in the coping department these days himself.

They're a pair of sorry sons of bitches, the two of them.

Dean shakes his head to rouse himself from his funk and kicks Sam under the table.

"What have you got?"

Sam clears his throat. "Well, witch-hazel is usually pretty innocuous. It's got some medicinal purposes that you already know about – astringent, stuff like that. But it can also be used in general spell-work. The problem is that it's such a common ingredient that it can be used in, like, half the spells we've seen. By itself, it's not enough to pin down whoever or whatever we're looking for."

Dean pokes at one of the purple flowers. "What about this one?"

Sam picks it up and twirls it in his fingers, looking at it thoughtfully. "I think it's a bellflower – campanula. As far as I can tell, it doesn't have _any_ supernatural properties. It's not usually used in spells or potions, and doesn't really have any medicinal uses either."

"Huh." Something is nagging at him, but he can't quite put his finger on what it is. "And neither of these is exactly local, I'm guessing?"

"Nope," Sam agrees. "Not in this climate. Whatever they're for, this pairing was chosen deliberately."

"You know," Dean muses, "flowers have different meanings. Like, roses mean love and lilies mean purity, shit like that."

Sam cracks a smile before ducking behind the laptop screen. "I bet you say that to all the girls, you big softie. That's how you get them to go out with you."

"Shut up, I'm serious."

"Whatever, your secret's out now." Sam clears his throat and hits enter. "Okay, so. This is going to vary from culture to culture, of course, but it looks like the most common meaning for campanula is...gratitude."

It's a harmless enough word, but it somehow feels portentous to Dean. Now that his gut has kicked in, it seems to be working overtime.

"Gratitude," he repeats. "Assuming these flowers were chosen for a reason, and that they're linked to whatever killed these people...who exactly is supposed to be grateful in this scenario? The dead people? The killer? Because that's a pretty fucked-up reason for gratitude, no matter which way you look at it."

Sam sighs and closes the laptop, eying the flowers. "Can't say I disagree with you. So what are we supposed to do now? Are there any local covens we should be checking out?"

Before Dean can answer, the table they sit at starts shaking. Sam looks over at him, frozen in shock, and Dean stares back wide-eyed before they simultaneously break for the other side of the room, Sam grabbing the laptop as he goes. Five seconds later, they stand side by side with guns trained on the shaking table.

"Dude, what the fuck?" Dean splutters.

"I don't know!"

"You put down the salt before you started researching, right?"

"Of course! You don't think..."

The air above the table starts to glow, a sickly green light that creeps into every corner of the room. The table continues to vibrate, and as they watch the flowers rise up and hover above its surface. In the blink of an eye, a woman is standing next to the table, calmly plucking the flowers out of midair and gathering them into her hands.

The glow of the light makes it difficult to make out anything about her. She stands tall in the middle of the room – taller than Dean, he would guess – and her eyes are the same ghostly green as the light. Her long dark hair undulates in some unfelt breeze, and her clothes hang in pale rags around her. She is every age and no age; her unlined face holds a maturity that makes such guessing impossible. Dean is a hairsbreadth from pulling the trigger when he notices that he can faintly make out the far side of the room through her body. Whatever this specter is, she isn't entirely corporeal, and it would be foolishness to waste a bullet on her until he knows more.

"Shit," Sam hisses under his breath. If the woman notices, she makes no sign.

As they watch, she finishes gathering every last flower and cradles them in her hands, looking down at them and murmuring something under her breath in a language Dean doesn't recognize. In a burst of light, the flowers vanish and she finally raises her pale eyes to Dean and Sam.

"Why did you disturb my altars?"

Her voice is low and melodic, nothing like what Dean was expecting, and he feels the hand holding his gun droop just a fraction before he refocuses and steadies his arms.

"Altars?" he asks, his voice sounding harsh and discordant next to the beauty of hers. "Is that what you're calling them?"

Her eyes narrow, and Dean watches out of the corner of his eye as Sam relaxes his stance and begins to ease to the side, taking the opening Dean has given him to try to circle around and give them a wider target. Dean swallows and raises his gun further, determined to keep the woman's eyes focused on him.

"I call them my altars because that is what they are," she answers. "You have desecrated them. Why?"

"Well, call me crazy, but I sort of have a little problem with someone coming along and ripping the hearts out of innocent people," he says. "Were they some kind of sacrifice? Is that what you mean?"

Sam is a quarter of the way around the room now, hugging the wall. Dean still doesn't know what the plan is, and he hurriedly goes through his options. Bullets are probably useless. He doesn't think she's a ghost – she wouldn't have been able to get through the salt lines otherwise. Would she respond to an exorcism?

The woman's face twists in fury, and in the blink of an eye she's standing in front of him with her hand around his throat. Dean hears Sam call his name, but all he can focus on is the cold grip around his windpipe. He can't quite feel the fingers that hold him – it's as if an impersonal force holds him pinned to the wall, not an actual person. He chokes out a breath and sneers at the face just inches from his own.

"Try it," he bites out. "We're a bit harder to kill than people who are already sleeping."

And then Sam's arm comes sweeping down, the iron knife he holds cutting through the specter of the woman. She wails in anger and throws one long arm out. Sam goes sailing back against the opposite wall, the knife flying from his grasp. He hits hard and goes down stunned, tripping and falling when he tries to get back to his feet. Dean watches helplessly, his vision starting to grey out around the edges from the lack of oxygen. The woman turns back to him and gives a cold smile, whatever momentary hurt the iron had given her seemingly healed.

"You call yourselves...hunters," she says. "A different age, a different name, but I know your kind. You should offer me the respect I deserve, mortal."

"Yeah?" Dean croaks. "Then give me your name, sweetheart."

"Oh," she says, shaking her head almost fondly. "I'll do better than that."

She brings her free hand up and smoothes it over his forehead and down over his eyes. Her touch is oddly gentle, but no matter how he struggles he can't break her grip.

"Sam!" he calls, coughing again when she tightens her other hand on his throat.

Dean can see the brightness of the room increase even through his closed eyelids. The hand across his eyes holds them tightly shut, and a warm voice murmurs words in his ear that he doesn't understand. The light grows and grows, her hand and his eyelids seemingly no barrier to the luminescence. It's a light without heat, a cold light that leaves no shadows. It's brighter than the flash of a grenade, brighter than a searchlight, brighter than the surface of the sun. The light burns into his eyes and into his brain, inescapable and merciless, and he can do nothing but cry aloud. Dimly he hears his brother's voice yelling his name, but he's powerless to answer.

"Now you can see," her voice whispers, and Dean feels himself collapsing to the floor as the light mercifully vanishes.


	3. Days Three - Four

The decision to drive to the hospital at Albuquerque rather than visit the local clinic had been an easy one. Once word got out that the two feds in town had visited the clinic – and used insurance cards with different names than their badges indicated – the game would be up. And as far as Sam was concerned, bigger is better when it comes to hospitals.

"No, Dean," he'd said firmly. "We're not fucking around with this one. If I have to, I'll tie you up and throw you in the car myself."

"Kinky," Dean had said, the show of bravado pretty pathetic with the way his voice shook. "Look, I'm sure it'll wear off in a few hours. Don't worry about it."

Except that it hadn't worn off – not on the drive over, not in the ER, and not when Dean is finally admitted overnight for observation.

"We'd like to wait for the swelling of the optic nerve to go down and have a specialist take a look at you tomorrow," the ER doctor says. His voice is rushed but reassuring, and Dean wonders vaguely what he looks like. The tone of voice makes him think of an older man with graying hair – a world-weary one who has seen more than his share of death, but is still able to put it aside at the end of the day and kiss his grandkids goodnight.

Stupid, really, but it's easier to make up stories about everyone else than to think about his own possible future.

"We're going to give you a course of steroids and antibiotics to help with the inflammation and possible infection, although I'm not too worried about that last bit," the doctor continues. "How's the pain, son?"

Dean blinks his eyes shut, the unremitting darkness no different than when they'd been open. His eyelids feel like sandpaper, and his head throbs with a sharp pain when he tries to turn his eyes too far in any direction.

"Uh, I guess about a three," he offers, and he hears the doctor make a harrumphing noise.

"I'm going to take a wild guess that your three is most people's eight. I'm going to get you set up with a painkiller too, okay? It'll help you get some sleep tonight. I think the headaches will start getting better in a few days, so just hang in there." Dean hears the sound of the man in front of him get to his feet. "I'm going to go check on your admittance status, and one of the nurses will be in to get you transferred upstairs. Do you have any questions for me, Dean?"

Dean shakes his head, just a bit, keeping his movements gentle to spare his head. He knows he should have plenty of questions – _What the fuck is wrong with me? When will my sight come back?_ – but his lips feel numb and incapable of shaping the words. There's only one thing he wants to know right then.

"My brother?" he asks, inordinately proud that his voice remains steady. He realizes that he hasn't heard Sam say anything in a while – but he hasn't heard Sam leave the room either, although that doesn't mean much to Dean given how distracted he is.

"Right here, Dean," Sam says quietly from somewhere to his left, and Dean has to fight down an unmanly wave of relief at hearing his brother's voice. He vaguely hears the doctor give his goodbyes and leave them alone in their curtained alcove. The noises of the emergency room carry on outside, but inside their own little corner of the world everything is quiet.

"You doing okay, Sammy?"

Sam laughs, a bitter sound that makes Dean's heart twist. "Yeah," he says. "I'm just fine. Just a bump on the head from where she threw me into the wall, but I'm not even bleeding."

"And still no idea who she is," Dean mutters. "You going to do some research tonight?"

"Yeah," Sam says again. "As soon as you're settled in, I'll grab a room and get to work. I don't know if she's planning on killing more people, but..."

He doesn't have to continue. In their line of work, it's always better to always assume that whatever they're hunting is planning on killing more people. It usually seems to work out that way.

Sam breaks off as one of the nurses comes in to start an IV and let him know that a wheelchair is on its way to bring him up to the fourth floor. She has a cute voice, so Dean flirts with her a bit on general principle while she holds his arm down and inserts the needle. His heart isn't in it, but he's distantly grateful for the way she chastises him with no little amount of humor and absolutely no pity. By the time she finishes, the wheelchair has arrived. The orderly insists on helping Dean into it, to his everlasting humiliation, and then dumps his chart on his lap for the ride upstairs.

"I'll see you later," Sam says once he's settled into his room. "Don't worry – I'm sure this will all be better tomorrow."

Dean already knows that hospital rooms are among the most miserable places in the universe to be. But to be stuck in a hospital room with the inability to watch TV, or read a magazine, or even look out the freaking window? Torture.

The hours pass slowly until nightfall, with nothing to spend his time on other than staring straight ahead. His headache persists, a dull ache that lingers behind his eyes, but at least it isn't getting any worse. He'd resisted taking the painkillers, but the nurse on his floor had persisted.

"They're going to do some more tests on you tomorrow, and you want to be well-rested for that," she'd said. "They'll have a better chance of getting a good image that way."

Out of sheer boredom he had agreed, and then spent most of the afternoon in a vague fog wondering how Sam was doing with the research and how long it would be before they released him – not that Dean has ever had a problem leaving a hospital AMA before. It should have been a tolerant confinement – quiet roommate, tolerable pain level, not too much a/c – but the humiliation of needing a nurse to help him to the bathroom and explain where his food is on his plate makes his cheeks burn with shame and outraged helplessness. The anger makes him more tired than the medication, and by the time they take his dinner tray away he's fast asleep.

Dean wakes up after what feels like several hours of sleep. The room is dark and quiet, the lights coming in from the hall giving him just enough illumination to see the general shape of the room. He's covered in a thin blanket, his IV stand looming next to his bed and giving out the occasional blink.

It takes another moment before his brain wakes up and he realizes that he is actually seeing the room, and his heart shoots into his throat. He nearly laughs aloud, the relief so sharp and sweet that it's almost painful.

He's sitting up in bed in a second and looking wildly around, trying to take in the entire room at once and failing to focus on any one thing. He's in a two-bed room, in the bed closest to the window and farthest from the door. A pale pink curtain is pulled partway around his bed, but he can just see the end of his roommate's bed peeking out from beyond the edge. There's a table next to his bed that holds a cup of water, and Dean gulps from it thirstily before he remembers the nurse saying something about putting his personal effects in the drawer. Sure enough, a plastic bag with this clothes, phone and wallet sit inside. He pulls out the phone and debates calling Sam, but the clock shows that it's after 2:00 am. Just in case his brother is actually sleeping, he decides to send a text instead.

_Just woke up, eyes all better. Will let you know if any of my nurses are hot. Come get me when you wake up._

He hesitates, can't resist adding a _told you so_ to the end. It will make Sam roll his eyes, which is totally the point.

Message sent, Dean relaxes back against the bed and looks vaguely around for the call button. A hint of movement catches his eye, and he looks up to see a man about his own age peek around the corner of the curtain.

"Hey," the guy says, lifting an arm in a wave. He has a hospital bracelet around his wrist and his blond hair hangs down past his shoulders. Tattoos peek out of the sleeve of his hospital gown, a fairly intricate snake taking up most of one arm. He tugs the curtain back further and climbs out of bed, putting his hands to his lower back and leaning back until Dean hears the crack clear across the room. If he had been attached to an IV, Dean can't see a sign of it. "Man, that's good," the guy says. He nods to Dean. "Joe. Nice to meet you."

"Hey there. Dean." He watches as Joe wanders over to the window and peers outside.

"Perfect," Joe says in satisfaction. He's a dark silhouette from this angle, back-lit by the bright moonlight outside. Dean can see him gesture to the parking lot. "Want to see my baby?"

Dean climbs out of bed, still a little shaky from the medication, and walks over to join Joe at the window, pulling his IV pole with him. The buildings of downtown Albuquerque surround them. The stars are bright in the sky overhead, and in the distance Dean can just make out the shadow of the mountains. Their room overlooks the west side of the hospital, and below them is a mostly-empty visitor's lot. For some reason it looks like most of the lights in the lot are out, with the exception of one blazingly bright light that illuminates an absolutely gorgeous motorcycle that sits in the center of the lot. Dean mostly prefers four wheels to two, but he can definitely appreciate a fine piece of machinery when he sees it. He gives a genuine whistle of approval.

"Nice," he says. "You had her long?"

"A few years," Joe says proudly. "Rebuilt her practically from the ground up. She's pretty special, that girl."

"I hear you," Dean says fervently, trying hard not to think about how much he misses having his own baby to show off.

With a last fond look at the bike, Joe walks over to his side of the room and digs into his drawer. He emerges with a hefty load – jeans, heavy boots, nicely worn leather jacket – that makes Dean wonder how in the hell he'd managed to fit it all in there. Without another look at Dean he yanks off his hospital gown and starts to dress himself in his street clothes. Dean turns around to give him a moment of privacy, and when he turns back around Joe is dressed and twirling a set of keys around his finger.

"Heading out?" Dean asks in amusement, feeling a rush of wistful envy. What he wouldn't give to be able to head out on the road, just him and the highway. Well...him, Sam and the highway. No research, no demons, no Leviathans.

He can't even bring himself to imagine what it would be like.

"I don't belong in here," Joe says with a shrug. "Out there...it's my life, you know?" He gives Dean a smirk. "You gonna narc on me?"

Dean laughs. "Not me. Have a good trip, man."

Joe nods and tosses his keys up in the air to catch them again. He gives Dean a salute and heads out the door whistling, boots clomping loudly against the linoleum floor. Dean wonders if it's possible to be _less_ stealthy trying to sneak out of a hospital. The walls around him seem to waver as he watches, shimmering like the air above a heated stretch of highway until Dean swears he can see the stars outside shining through them. Clearly the drugs are starting to catch up with him again; he finds himself yawning loudly. Chances are Sam won't get his text for a few more hours yet, so he climbs back into bed and falls asleep again almost immediately.

The room is still dark behind his closed eyelids when he is awakened by a blood pressure cuff being wrapped around his upper arm. He must have grumbled his disapproval, because a female voice chuckles.

"Sorry, your highness," she says with a laugh. "I'll be done as quick as I can, and then we'll see about getting you some breakfast.

"Why?" he asks, eyes still shut. "It's the middle of the freaking night."

The nurse – and it must be a nurse; no one else has that same brisk efficiency with medical equipment – is silent for a moment, clearly counting. After a moment she deflates and unwraps the cuff, giving Dean's arm a pat. "You sound like my son," she says. "7:15 am may be early for you, but it's not exactly the middle of the night. How's the head this morning?"

Dean cracks his eyes open and has a moment of disorientation followed by a rush of blind panic.

The room is completely dark. He's unable to see a thing.

He sits up in bed with a gasp, clearly startling the nurse, and looks wildly around the room in all directions. Everything is just as dark as it was when he'd first been brought to the hospital. It's as if his encounter with Joe the night before had never happened, which makes Dean suspect it had all been an incredibly vivid, meds-induced dream. His heart plummets, a swell of nausea making him clench his teeth and pray that he doesn't have to ask for something to puke in.

"Dean?" the nurse asks. "I'm Debra, and I'm going to put my hand on your shoulder, okay?" He must have nodded, because he feels her warm grip on his arm. "It must have been disorienting, waking up to that. Looks like you're doing well, otherwise. Your BP is fine and you don't have a temperature, which is excellent news. We're going to take care of you, okay? Dr. Simmons is going to be in early this afternoon. He's a neuro-ophthalmologist, and he'll be able to give you a lot more information, all right? In the meantime, how is your head doing?"

It hurts less this morning, which is a small mercy, and he tells Debra so, shaking off her offer of more painkillers. He shrugs when she asks what he's hungry for. Once she tells him that he can't have any coffee, he doesn't really give a shit.

"We'll get you some herbal tea," she says, as if that's something to look forward to. "Just in case you want something warm to drink. Do you think you can handle some toast?"

He wants to scream at her, wants to laugh out loud at her useless offers of stupid fucking tea and toast when he can't fucking _see_ , but he knows that it isn't her fault. He swallows his anger behind a polite smile and a nod.

An orderly arrives to help him to the bathroom – another humiliation he doesn't like to dwell on – and by the time he's cleaned up and back in bed his breakfast has arrived. He's picking listlessly at the cold toast when he hears a knock on the open door followed by his brother's voice.

"Dude, lazy much? What is your ass still doing in bed?"

Dean can't help smiling, turning his face to the place where Sam's voice had come from. "Whatever, man. You're just jealous I've got Debra to wait on me."

Sam laughs, his voice coming from a point closer now, and Dean hears the scrape of metal on linoleum as Sam pulls out the chair and settles down next to his bed.

"Yeah, I met Debra at the desk out there. She told me she's keeping you in line." He feels Sam's fist bump him lightly on the shoulder. "How was last night?"

Dean shrugs. "Nothing much to tell. Had a weird dream, woke up still blind." He knows he sounds bitter, tries to modulate his voice for his brother's benefit. "How about you? Any luck on the research?"

"Nothing much yet," Sam admits. He takes a deep breath, and Dean can tell Sam's bracing himself for something. "I wish Bobby was here," he says softly. "I don't have access to most of his books, and the stuff I do have was organized by a crazy person. Or a Martian. It's taking me forever to find anything. But I've still got a lot to go through, so...."

"Yeah," Dean says morosely. It isn't like he had expected Sam to waltz through the door with a miracle cure – that isn't the way their lives work – but the tiny hope had been there regardless. And it always hurts to have those hopes crushed.

"Yeah, speaking of..." Sam pauses. "I got a really weird text from you last night. Did something happen?"

Dean freezes. A shiver runs up his back, leaving his nerves tingling. He sits up straighter and turns toward Sam's voice.

"A text?" he asks carefully. "Did...did it tell you that I could see?"

Sam huffs. "Yeah. Bad joke, man, seriously. Did you get one of the nurses to type it out for you?"

Dean feels his breath coming faster and faster. He can see it all in his head – Joe's leather jacket, the motorcycle in the moonlight – and it was real. It was _real_.

"I thought it was a dream," he says faintly. He reaches out blindly and grabs at the first thing he finds, which turns out to be his brother's sleeve. "Sam, it really happened!"

"Whoa, okay," Sam says, gently rescuing his sleeve before Dean tears a hole in it. He keeps his fingers clamped around Dean's wrist, and the touch centers Dean. "You mean...you woke up in the middle of the night and your sight was back?" he asks carefully.

"Yes!" Dean insists. "How else do you think I sent you the message? I just figured it was a really vivid dream when I woke up this morning and I was still...you know." He can't quite bring himself to finish the sentence.

"Huh," Sam says, clearly deep in thought. "So...that's good, right? It means your sight _is_ coming back. I guess it's just, you know, a process. Did you tell the doctor?"

"Haven't seen him yet," Dean says. That tiny bit of hope is back, no matter how hard he tries to smother it. "The curtain between the bed is pink, right?"

"Yeah," Sam says, and Dean hears the smile in his brother's voice. The sound buoys him.

"And my roommate, Joe – did you see him?"

The chair creaks as if Sam is shifting his weight, craning his neck to look at the other bed. "Uh, I saw him yesterday for a second – he was pretty out of it. He's not there now."

"I know," Dean says, waving the comment aside. "I talked to him before he left. What does he look like? Let me guess: thirties, big snake tat on one of his arms, kind of an Axl Rose thing going on with the hair?"

"Dude, that's him!" Sam says, and Dean can't help grinning with relief.

"Yeah, man. He showed me his motorcycle from the window – it's a beauty. He decided to ditch the place, walked out like he owned it. He must be hundreds of miles away by now." The thought of the open road makes him wistful all over again, but this time the envy is tempered by optimism. At this rate, he'll be on the open road himself before much longer.

Sam, though, doesn't seem to be sharing his joy. He's gone disturbingly quiet, which makes Dean start to worry.

"Sam? What's up? This is supposed to be good news."

Sam pauses for just a moment too long for Dean's comfort before clearing his throat. "No, it is. I just...are you sure you saw your roommate walking out last night? I mean, I didn't see the guy for too long myself, but he looked like he was in pretty bad shape. I don't think he'd really be walking anywhere, much less taking a motorcycle trip."

"Well, I wouldn't peg him to win any beauty contests, but the guy looked good enough to get out of here on his own steam," Dean says. "Why? Do you know what he was in for?"

"Hang on a second," Sam says, and Dean can hear him walk to the door and return a moment later with what sounds like a pile of papers. "His file," Sam says. "Or part of it, at least." He starts flipping through the folder, Dean waiting impatiently for Sam to tell him something, anything.

"Well?" he finally asks.

Sam swallows, the noise audible in the quiet of the room. "Joseph McCollins, thirty-three. He was in an accident ten days ago, motorcycle vs. car. Looks like he was in the ICU until two days ago. Broken ribs, perforated lung, liver damage, extensive crushing injury to his left leg. Dean... they removed his leg below the knee a week ago."

In the silence of the room, Dean can hear his own heartbeats thunder in his ears. "But I saw him," he says faintly, after a long moment in shock. "Sam, I'm not making this up. He's not there now, is he? And I sent you that text, remember?"

"I know!" Sam says, and Dean can almost picture him holding his hands up in a supplicating gesture. "I believe you, okay? But...dude, this guy didn't walk out of here last night on his own steam. Not on anyone else's steam, for that matter. He was in a medically induced coma, still in the process of waking up."

Before Dean can argue back, there's another knock at the open door followed by the rattle of wheels from what is unmistakably a wheelchair. Dean can hear Sam make a shuffling noise, imagines him shoving the borrowed file underneath the bed.

"Dean," Debra says. "There's someone here to bring you down for an MRI. It shouldn't take more than about forty-five minutes if you want your brother to wait."

"Thanks," Dean says dully, still trying to figure out exactly what the fuck he had seen last night. "Hey, Debra? The guy who was here – Joe." He waves his arm vaguely in the direction of the other bed and hopes he gets his point across. "Where is he?"

"He had surgery again this morning," Debra says. "They came and got him before you woke up. If all goes well, he should be back on this wing tomorrow morning. Now, come on. Chair's right in front of you. I'll get you settled and Ana here will take you for a ride."

In something of a daze, Dean lets himself be manhandled into the wheelchair, clutching at a light blanket to preserve what's left of his modesty. As they start to wheel him to the door he turns in what he hopes is the right direction.

"Sam? You'll check up on...the thing?"

"Yeah," Sam says, sounding about as rattled as Dean felt. "Don't worry. We'll figure it out."

They don't get a chance to talk again until after lunch. Dean returns from his MRI to find Sam gone – he's left a message with Debra that he had something to check on and would be back later – and Dean can only hope that he has a lead. Time seems to pass as slowly as it had yesterday, and Dean fumbles around until he finds the TV remote and manages to turn it on. He suspects it's tuned to the Home Shopping Network, but he doesn't really care enough to change it. Just having something to listen to besides the thoughts in his head makes him feel more human.

God, he would kill for a drink.

By the time Sam reappears, Dean is ready to climb the walls.

"Man, tell me you've got something," he almost begs.

"Maybe," Sam answers. "But first...."

There's a rustling noise, something that sounds like a paper bag. A cardboard container nudges Dean's fingers, and he grabs for the box of fries Sam passes him. They're still hot, salt and grease exploding on his tongue when he shoves a few of them in his mouth, and he lets out a pathetic moan of gratitude.

"You're welcome," Sam says, clearly amused. "And I'm still doing research. Obviously this is a side effect of whatever she did to you."

"Yeah, never would have guessed that. We have a name on her, by the way?" His mouth is full as he talks, but it's nothing Sam hasn't seen before.

"Not yet," Sam says. "So you can't see anything right now, but you were able to see last night. Any vision problems then? Blurriness, anything?" When Dean shakes his head, he continues. "Maybe you can only see at night?" He sounds doubtful, and Dean doesn't blame him.

"What, like the world's crappiest superpower? Yeah, I don't think so. Anyway, the attack happened at night and I couldn't see anything then either."

"Okay, so that's out. What about Joe? I'd say that you'd seen a ghost, but...."

"I see dead people?" Dean asks caustically. "And apparently the guy is still alive and sort of kicking, so scratch that."

"Maybe we should wait and hear what the doctor has to say," Sam says.

As if on cue, there's another knock on the open door. Dean is getting heartily sick of people being able to just stick their heads in and knock while he has to wait for them to announce themselves. They could have been standing there staring silently at him for five minutes before they bothered to knock and he'd be none the wiser.

"Hi, Dean," a voice says, interrupting the beginning of a buildup of righteous anger. "I'm Dr. Peter Simmons. I was asked to consult on your treatment. I'm sorry I wasn't able to come by earlier, but I wanted to wait until your MRI results were in. Can I come in?"

"Sure," Dean grunts. He folds his arms across his chest, waiting for the doctor to settle on a place in the room and speak again so he knows where to turn his head to at least make it look like he's paying attention. "My brother, Sam."

"Hi, Sam." From the sound, they're shaking hands. Dean wants to stick his own hand out, just to make a point that he's still in charge here in some capacity, but he imagines how foolish he would look and tightens his arms against his body instead. "You're okay with Sam being here to discuss your file?"

"Yeah," Dean says impatiently. "Just...just tell me, okay?"

Another scrape of metal against the floor indicates that another chair has been pulled up to his bedside. He's becoming heartily sick of sitting in bed while people congregate around him.

"Well, the good news is that your brain looks perfectly fine – no damage that I can see," Dr. Simmons says. "The swelling in your optic nerve has gone down a bit from yesterday, so I'd like to continue the steroids for one more day. No sign of infection, which is excellent news. Have the headaches improved?" At Dean's nod, he continues. "That's good. They should continue to weaken over the next week. After today, you probably won't need anything much stronger than some Extra-Strength Tylenol."

"Sounds great," Dean says. His voice sounds rusty to his own ears, and he swallows to try to clear his throat. "So why can't I see yet?"

"There has been some damage to the optic nerve," the doctor says. "Aside from the swelling, I see evidence of extensive scarring. Damage like that can be...extraordinarily difficult to treat. There's still a possibility that once the swelling has come the rest of the way down that there will be some improvement. But I have to warn you..." and here the doctor's voice turns gentle, a tone that sets Dean's teeth on edge, "...best case scenario is that you will have significant – if not total – permanent loss of sight."

Dean doesn't realize he's clenching his jaw until his teeth start to ache. He wants to scream. He wants to laugh. He wants to tell the doctor _fuck you, I just saw perfectly last night, you know-nothing quack_. But he knows better than to open his mouth under the circumstances. Thank God, Sam is there to play nice, as usual.

"What are the treatment options?" Sam asks. His voice is calm, methodical, and Dean can picture his brother sitting in his chair with a notepad and pen, ready to diligently record everything the doctor said. "Surgery? Optic nerve transplant?"

"Bionic eyes?" Dean adds sarcastically. "Why don't you just call me Steve Austin, Sam?"

"There actually have been some promising studies involving artificial implants and photoreceptors," Dr. Simmons replies, as if Dean's stupid outburst had been a perfectly logical question. "And maybe down the road that would be an option. But in this case I'd say that kind of technology is a good ten years away, at least as far as a practical solution. And I feel that, at this point, a surgical procedure would have suboptimal results. The risk of rejection and further damage is much too great."

"So...so that's it?" Sam asks quietly. He sounds about ten years old, and Dean's heart hurts in his chest. "That can't just be _it_. There has to be something we can do!"

"I understand that this is difficult," the doctor says gently. "And although it may be a challenge to adapt, there is a lot that we can do to make the transition as easy as possible on Dean. I've set up an appointment for tomorrow with one of our occupational therapists. They'll be able to help you develop a plan to...."

It's finally too much. The pressure that has been building up behind his ribs finally bursts. Dean sweeps his arm aside, catching the edge of the bedside tray on its flimsy wheels. It falls to the floor with a loud clatter, probably taking the pitcher of water that Dean knows was sitting there along with it. The trickle of water over the smooth floor is loud in the ensuing silence.

"Sorry," Dean says numbly. He isn't, not really, but it seems the right thing to say under the circumstances.

"It's fine," Dr. Simmons says. If Dean's actions have shocked him, there is no sign of it in his voice. "It's okay to be angry, Dean. It's a perfectly understandable reaction. You'll probably keep getting angry in the days to come, and that's okay. But you've got some good people here ready to help you out. My advice? Channel that anger, and make it work for you. Because it may not seem like it right now, but you've got your whole life in front of you."

"Thank you, doctor," Sam says. Dean had almost forgotten his brother is in the room.

"I'm leaving my card with Sam, in case you have any questions," the doctor says. "I'll be checking in with you tomorrow. Do you need anything before then?"

Dean shakes his head, and with that he and Sam are alone again. The TV still drones away in the background, white noise to fill the empty spots in his chest that his outburst has released. Finally, Sam stirs.

"He doesn't know everything, you know."

Dean snorts. "Seems like he knows plenty to me. What, did you get your medical degree while I wasn't looking? Maybe when you were missing a soul? Seems like you'd fit right in then."

Sam doesn't rise to the bait. "He doesn't know what we know – that this wasn't a natural event. He doesn't know what you _saw_ last night. So, no – he doesn't know everything. And neither do we. But at least we have a place to keep looking."

It's actually easier to listen to Sam when he doesn't have to look at him, when he doesn't have to see from Sam's eyes that he's lying to both of them. It's easier to fool himself this way.

"Sam, I need you to do something for me."

Sam pats his leg, a move that could have been condescending but is strangely comforting. "Yeah, man. You got it."

Dean swallows. "Get me out of here."


	4. Days Five - Seven

Leaving against medical advice had been as much fun as it always was, but Dean had lied and promised to return to meet with their therapist, which...screw that. He doesn't need some fucking hack to teach him how to eat and shave and take a shit on his own. And he doesn't need Sam either, for that matter.

It's a fact that Sam seems completely oblivious to.

The motel Sam had checked them in to is on the outskirts of the city. The first night there, Dean is too exhausted to do more than fall asleep almost as soon as he has a bed to lie on – which makes no sense, given how much time he's spent in a bed over the past two days. He wakes to darkness and the sound of Sam tapping away at the keyboard. The noise pauses when Sam clearly notices that Dean is awake.

"Hey, man. How you feeling?"

Dean sits up, feeling completely disoriented. At least in the hospital he'd had his one glimpse – or vision, or _something_ – of the room to ground him in the space, but here he has no clue where anything is.

"Fine," he says casually. He wants to lie back down and pretend to go back to sleep, but his bladder is protesting too loudly. "Uh, dude...where's the bathroom?"

"Oh!" He hears Sam get up and walk over to his bedside, and then his arm is taken in a firm grip with a suddenness that surprises him. "Come on, I'll show you."

Dean snatches his arm back. "I don't need you to hold my hand, princess. Just point me in the right direction."

There's a pause, and Dean feels the bed dip as Sam sits down next to him.

"Okay, here's the thing," Sam finally says. "You don't want to see an occupational therapist, and I totally get that. You're right that you can probably come up with your own way to do everything. I'm right there with you, man. But..." he pauses, as if sounding the words out in his head, "...you don't have to pull the _I'm too tough to need help_ crap with me, you know? After all this time, I think we're past it." Sam laughs humorlessly. "You want to be Mr. Tough Macho dude in public, have at it. But if we're going to do this...I'm going to try my best, but I may screw up from time to time. I can't keep worrying that I'm going to say or do the wrong thing and you're going to freak out and hurt yourself because you're trying to make some stupid point, you know? After all this time..." he repeats, trailing off into silence.

Dean can feel Sam's presence beside him – the weight of his body curving the mattress, the smell of his shampoo, the sound of his breathing. It feels like it has been years since he's been able to just relax in Sam's company and take it for granted the way he used to. Part of him still marvels at the miracle of having Sam back at all – _his_ Sam, body and soul more or less intact – and he suddenly realizes that he half lives in expectant fear of having his brother snatched away again at any moment. And there isn't really anything he can do about that fear, because in his own mind it's completely rational. The universe has never given them a break before. Why should it start now? But he can't keep expecting the worst, either. It isn't fair to Sam.

Maybe he can't come up with a way to fix the holes in his own brain, but for Sam he can fake it until it's close enough to the real thing.

"Okay," he finally says. "I hear you, Sam. And I'm going to try too, okay?"

Sam blows out a long breath. "Thanks," he says quietly. "I'm going to try not to be pushy, but I've been doing a little reading online and there are some things I can do to make it easier on you until you figure out your own system – you know, describing the room to you, not leaving crap on the floor for you to trip over, telling you what's on your plate. You okay with that?"

It's a bitter pill, but Dean nods. As much as he wants to rebel against Sam's helpfulness, he said he would try.

"Okay. But there are some ground rules," he says. "For one thing, don't just grab my arm, okay? That's not going to work at all."

"You're right," Sam says quickly. "I'm sorry about that. So...are we good?"

Dean tries to smile. "I don't know if 'good' is the right word, but...yeah. We're going to be okay, Sammy." He reaches out and finds his brother's thigh, pounds it with his fist. "Now enough with this crap. Help me get to the bathroom already, dude. I gotta take a piss."

Sam laughs and stands up, helping Dean to his feet. It takes them a minute to figure out a system that has Sam describing the route to him as much as he can, gently guiding him by the elbow to keep him in line. Before long, the rough carpet changes to cool tile beneath Dean's bare feet, and he can tell by the change in acoustics that they have entered a smaller space.

"Here you go," Sam says, taking Dean's hand and placing it on the smooth laminate counter in front of him. Dean reached forward, fumbling with his fingers until he finds the sink. Hot and cold taps in the usual place, check. At Sam's direction, he takes a few steps to his left and finds the toilet. Turning a hundred and eighty degrees brings him up against the towel rack, a clean towel already on it. Reaching out with his foot, he bumps against the tub and shower. A small bathroom, which is good because it's pretty much all he can handle at the moment. He hears Sam click the lights on, the hum of the fluorescents unexpectedly loud.

"You know that's not exactly necessary, right?" he can't help saying.

"...Yeah, sorry," Sam says quietly, and Dean winces.

"All right, we're good. Get out, would you? I want to take a shower."

Sam hovers in the doorway as Dean tries to close the door. "Anything else you need? There's shampoo and soap already in the tub, in the usual place. Your toothbrush is to the right of the sink, right next to the toothpaste. If you need help shaving...."

"Sam," Dean says, more gently than he feels, "I got it. Okay?" He runs his hand over his chin, feeling the itch of beard that is a few days past tending to. "I think I'll keep rocking the manly stubble look for now. If you want..." It hurts to ask for anything, but he feels he owes it to Sam to let him be helpful, "...if you want, get some clean clothes out of my bag for me for when I'm done? I trust you to not let me dress like a total dork."

Sam snorts. "Sorry, I can't work miracles," he shoots back, "but I'll see what I can come up with." It's exactly the reaction Dean had been hoping for, so with a smile he tries again to shut the door. Sam is still holding it open, and Dean has to fight the urge to roll his eyes. 

"I know you don't want to hear this," Sam says quickly, "but you might find it easier to, you know. Sit down, when you have to go. Just until you get used to not being able to...I mean...okay, I'm sure you've got it."

And then the door is closed and Dean is finally alone in the bathroom, Sam's words ringing in his ears. The wave of helpless anger that wells up isn't entirely unexpected, but he still has to fight the urge to slam his fist into the wall. It would only bring Sam running, and that's the last thing he wants right then. Instead, he fumbles his way over to the shower and finds the taps. A little trial and error allows him to get the temperature right, and he even remembers to check by feel to make sure that the shower curtain is tucked in at the bottom. Screw the toilet. If he has to take a goddamn shower every time he needs to take a leak in order to piss standing up like a real man, then that's what he'll damn well do, and fuck Sam for suggesting otherwise. If he doesn't like it, let him find his own room and his own shower.

And if the shower also does a good job of hiding his tears? Well, that's just a bonus.

Sam insists that Dean come along with him when he goes to fill up the car and replenish their snacks.

"Come on, man," he says. "I may forget to buy your beer otherwise."

"Low blow, Sam."

But it doesn't take much effort to convince Dean to go out. He's starting to go stir-crazy in the motel room, pacing back and forth in the space Sam had cleared near the window. He can take six long steps in each direction before he has to turn around. Sam had asked him if he wanted to go out, maybe take a walk somewhere, and Dean had snapped at him.

"Sure, sounds great. You gonna get a leash to put on me?"

Sam hasn't asked again, but apparently he isn't above bribery.

Dean stays in the car at the gas station, drumming his fingers on the edge of the open window while Sam pays for the gas. The early spring breeze coming through the window is a refreshing change after the close quarters of their motel room, and Dean grudgingly admits that this might have been one of Sam's better ideas. He sits and listens to the hum of traffic and tries not to think about the fact that just a week ago he would have been able to drive himself out of there. Instead, he's forced to wait for his baby brother to cart his ass around, which is as close to pathetic as he's ever been.

He realizes suddenly that he can't remember what color their latest car is, and it's like a cold weight in the pit of his stomach. He's beginning to wonder whether that night in the hospital had been a dream after all, texts to Sam notwithstanding. Maybe this is it for him.

The creak of the door and jostle of shocks as Sam sits back down in the driver's seat rouses him from his thoughts.

"Here," Sam says, dumping a large plastic bag in Dean's lap. "Beer's in the back seat. Anywhere you want to go before we head back?"

"Where the hell would I go?" Dean asks listlessly. The warm breeze seems to mock him now with its promises of freedom, and he rolls up the window. Sam pauses but doesn't say a word, just starts the car and pulls into traffic.

It used to be that he could spend hours in Sam's presence in a comfortable silence, knowing exactly what his brother was thinking from every last smile or grimace that crossed his face. A raised eyebrow equaled disgust at Dean's choice of music, a wrinkled forehead was a sign of anxiety, pursed lips that twitched at the edges meant laughter being held back. And now he has no fucking clue what is going through Sam's brain.

It feels like Sam has lost his soul all over again.

Dean's center of gravity shifts as the car pulls off to the side of the road, the bump of tires over grass indicating that they aren't in a parking lot. The sound of traffic is faint in the distance now, and when Dean opens his door his boots catch on rough patches of dirt and grass instead of smooth pavement.

He feels his way over to the front of the car and perches in the hood. He senses Sam's presence as a shadow on his skin before Sam nudges a cold beer into his hands without being asked, taking a seat next to him on the hood.

Apparently they're still doing okay with some forms of communication. The knot in Dean's stomach eases slightly.

They sit in near silence, passing a bag of jerky back and forth. When Dean closes his eyes he can pretend this is any other day on the road, taking the opportunity to relax and catch some sun with his brother and pretend for a few minutes that there aren't face-eating monsters hunting the country for them. He opens his eyes and tilts his head toward the sun like a flower, feeling the warmth on his face like a balm after the cold sterility of the hospital.

"Hey," Sam says quietly, jostling his shoulder. "Don't."

He twitches to the side, irritated at being jerked out of the first good mood he's had for days. "What?"

Sam clears his throat. "Just...keep your eyes closed. Or turn your head. You were looking right at the sun."

It's more of an effort than it should be to hold back the bubble of hysterical laughter that wells up. There are so many things that are on the tip of his tongue – angry things, cruel things, even, to Sam of all people – but they get tangled up and the only thing that comes out is,

"You really think it fucking matters?"

He waits for the lecture, but all Sam says is, "Yeah. I do."

Like Sam knows what he's talking about. Like Dean's scarred optic nerve will just spontaneously heal itself as long as he stays out of direct sunlight. The temptation to throw his bottle overhand as hard as he can – not caring where, just wanting to hear the glass shatter – is almost overwhelming.

But fuck it, he promised Sam he would try, and so he turns his head obediently and closes his eyes for good measure.

"Fine. Can you take me back to the motel now?"

The second long day in a row of attempted research has Dean ready to shoot the first person who gets in his way. He suspects that Sam feels the same way, which is why it is probably a good idea that they decide to part ways temporarily after lunch.

Dean has never had Sam's patience for research, and his complete inability to use the computer or page through any of Bobby's books leaves him even more frustrated than usual. Sam tries to read aloud when he can, making it a point to ask Dean questions and get his advice on possible translations, but eventually that grinds to a halt when Sam gets into his study groove. When Sam gets impatient with Dean's prodding and snaps that it's faster for him to work on his own, Dean clenches his jaw and retaliates with a rousing rendition of "Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall". Sam lasts five minutes before grabbing his coat and announcing he's going for lunch, slamming the door on the way out.

"Well, screw you too," Dean mutters, picking his way to the TV and turning it on. _Figured he'd leave sooner or later._

His phone rings before he gets settled on the bed, and with a curse he stands and tries to figure out where the noise is coming from. It stops ringing before he is able to trace it to the table, but it immediately starts up again as if whoever is calling doesn't bother trying to leave voicemail before calling back. It only takes him three ring cycles to find the phone and answer it.

"What?" he barks when he finally has it open in his hand.

There's a pause on the other end. "How did you know it was me?" Sam asks.

Dean sighs and scrubs his hand through his hair. "What other moron would keep calling like that? What do you want, Sam?"

"I just...what do you want for lunch?"

Dean blinks. "Since when have you asked me that? Get whatever, I don't care. As long as it's got some meat in it. Dude, what did you really call about?"

He can hear Sam sigh over the phone, the sound of traffic loud in the background. Sam is out in the car, free to go wherever he wants whenever he wants without asking for help or permission. The jealousy hits Dean hard.

"I wanted to make sure you knew where the phone was," Sam admits. "Just in case."

It was one of the first things they worked on when Dean left the hospital. Sam showed Dean which buttons to press to get Sam on speed dial, and he practiced until he could do it perfectly by touch. Sam insisted that Dean carry his phone with him at all times, and Dean rolled his eyes and quietly agreed while accusing Sam of acting like his mother.

And now Sam has called him to make sure he has his phone on him since Sam hadn't bothered to check before leaving the motel room. Dean isn't sure whether to laugh or cry, but the fond irritation he feels is both overwhelming and comforting in its familiarity. _This is what family is_ , he thinks, but just settles for an exasperated sigh into the phone.

"I'm still pissed at you," he warns.

"Yeah, whatever," Sam says. "Chinese good?"

"Fine. And we're almost out of beer."

"Whatever," Sam repeats, and hangs up.

Sam returns an hour later with both food and beer, along with another object that he hands over to Dean.

"It's a digital voice recorder," he explains as Dean runs his fingers along the smooth outer edge, careful not to press any of the tiny buttons. "The basic ones are pretty cheap nowadays. I want to head out to the library this afternoon – there's a local history I want to check out. And if you want to come with me, you totally can. But if you want to stay here...I thought this way I could call you with updates, and you could record your thoughts as you have them instead of trying to write stuff down."

_Yeah, he knows how useless you are. It was only a matter of time._

Dean swallows hard and takes a long pull on his beer. 

"I think I'll stay here," he says easily. "I think I need a fresh look at what happened that night – maybe saying it all out loud will trigger something."

And he needs to _not_ be in public at the moment. The thought of anyone staring at him fills him with an irrational anger, and until he can find a way to deal with that, it's probably safer for him not to be around people.

"Okay," Sam agrees, his tone suggesting that he hadn't expected anything else. Dean's mood sours further. "I'll check in with you by phone and bring dinner back later. We can go through everything then."

The afternoon passes slowly. True to his word, Dean uses the recorder Sam demonstrated for him to go through all his memories of the mysterious woman who had blinded him. He describes every detail that he can remember of the three crime scenes they had visited, hoping to jar something loose in his head. Nothing important rises to the surface, and from Sam's occasional phone call, nothing good is happening on his end either. Nothing, nothing, nothing, with a side of nothing. By the time Sam makes it back to the room with dinner, the beer is gone. Somehow it hasn't helped Dean feel any better.

Sam is still awake and typing away when Dean finally drifts off to sleep, the TV playing softly in the background. He wakes to a silent room and out of instinct turns his head to check on Sam.

Sam is standing over his bed, staring down at Dean, his face hidden in shadow. Dean yelps and scrambles backward, back hitting the headboard. It takes a second for him to realize that he is actually _seeing_ Sam, and he lets out a giddy laugh of relief.

"Sam? Sam, I can see you! Dude, I can see you standing right there!"

The TV is still on but muted, the flickering images washing Sam's skin in a blue glow. The colors he sees are almost inhumanly sharp after so long in darkness, and Dean almost doesn't know where to look first. He takes in the motel room in one hungry sweep of the eyes and then turns back to his brother. Sam hasn't moved or responded to Dean other than to raise his head slightly, shadowed face focusing on Dean. As Dean watches Sam in confusion, he realizes that he has been hearing a dripping sound, coming from somewhere close by.

"Sammy?" he asks, suddenly uncertain. "You okay, man?"

Sam raises his head further, and Dean's throat tightens in alarm when he sees that the dripping noise has been caused by the dark rivulets of blood streaming from Sam's hairline and running down his face, pattering onto the carpet.

"Shit!" Dean says in alarm, rising up onto his knees and reaching for the light on the bedside table. He flicks it on and grabs up the end of his comforter, reaching for Sam. "Dude, what the fuck happened to you?"

He realizes then that Sam isn't looking at him but _through_ him, as if seeing something – or someone – that isn't there. Fucking hell, of all the times for Sam to be having a hallucination it has to be now. Did he cut himself? What the fuck is going on?

Sam steps back as Dean reaches for him, keeping his eyes trained on a point just over Dean's left shoulder.

"I belong to you," Sam whispers, his voice hoarse.

The skin on the back of Dean's neck crawls. He knows – he knows – that nothing is there, but he can't help turning his head slightly just to take a peek. He freezes when...Jesus fuck, he hears something _breathing_ right behind him.

The initial fight-or-flight reaction doesn't last more than a second – he's too well trained for that – but he never gets the chance to whirl around and grab for whoever is behind him. At that very instant, Sam bursts into flames.

"Sam!"

The fire licks at Sam's form, turning his clothes to ash and kindling his hair until his entire head is wreathed in flames. Without a second thought, Dean dives for his brother with the blanket outstretched...

...and passes right through Sam and falls to the floor in a heap.

He scrambles to his feet, dropping the blanket, and tries again to grab Sam's arm. His hand passes right through Sam as if he isn't there. He hadn't noticed it before in the shock of the moment, but Dean realizes then that he can't feel the heat of the flames that are consuming Sam.

"Sam!" he calls, increasingly desperate, but it doesn't appear that Sam can hear him. He stands frozen in the middle of the floor as the fire eats at him. When his skin starts to bubble and blacken, Sam begins to scream, a thin, horrible sound that tears at Dean's ears. Dean doesn't realize he is screaming right along with Sam until the room is plunged into darkness and Sam's cries stop.

"Dean!"

Someone has him by the shoulders. Instinct kicks in and he shoves them away, following up with a punch that connects on muscle and bone. His attacker yelps and then tackles him. Dean lands on the bed and tries to scramble upright, but someone is holding him down and he can't see who it is through the utter blackness.

"Dean, Jesus! It's me!"

Dean freezes as he finally recognizes his brother's voice.

"Sam?" he gasps.

He's finally released, allowing him to sit upright, and he grabs Sam's arm. He holds tightly with one hand, bringing the other up to Sam's shoulder and running it lightly over his hair and face. He appears to be whole and unburned, no blood, no melting flesh or sizzling hair. Sam twitches at his exploration but doesn't say anything until Dean has finished and let out a sigh of relief, releasing his brother and running a shaky hand over his own face.

"Bad dream?" Sam asks sympathetically

"I guess," he answers slowly, coughing to cover up the tremor in his voice. It had felt so real, though, aside from Sam's incorporeality. The sights, the sounds, the _smells_...Dean shudders. Something is nagging at him, and he can't figure out what. "What...did you see anything?"

"I just woke up and saw you standing there, yelling. You all right?"

Dean doesn't answer, thinking back to the vision he saw. It hadn't felt like a dream, not really – he is familiar enough with the unreality of the dream world that he knows the difference in how it feels when he actually wakes up. But...it doesn't feel like he's woken up from anything.

"Wait," he says slowly, trying to force his brain to work through the lingering remains of the terror he witnessed. "You saw me? It's nighttime, right?" It's depressing how he has become acclimated to not knowing the time of day or night, but Dean doesn't dwell on it.

"Yeah, it's about 3:30 am."

"And you were asleep," Dean continues. "Did you turn off the light before you went to bed?"

"...yeah?" Sam says again, drawing out the word and making it a question. "What's going on?"

Dean reaches out his hand and feels for the table beside his bed. He fingers the shade of the lamp and reaches underneath, hissing at the heat of the naked bulb. "The light's on now, isn't it? The one between our beds." It isn't a question – he already knows it was. It's beginning to dawn on him what he has seen, and his skin prickles with the implications.

"Wait...did _you_ turn it on?" He can hear the frown in Sam's voice. "Why?"

Dean swallows through a tight throat. "I don't think I was dreaming, Sam. But I think _you_ were."


	5. Days Eight - Nine

The coffee burns the back of Dean's throat as he takes a long sip, hot and bitter and perfect. He pushes it aside and sits up straighter, playing with one of the sugar packets that litters the table in front of him. Neither of them generally uses sugar in their coffee, but that didn't stop Sam from picking up a handful when he went on an early morning caffeine run. At least it gives Dean something to occupy his hands.

The fact that he knows what the motel room looks like right now, even if he can't currently see it, is a relief that he doesn't think he'd be able to explain to Sam. His brother sits across from him drinking his own coffee, waiting for his laptop to boot up. It's still early, but by unspoken consensus neither of them was interested in going back to sleep.

"Okay," Sam finally says. "Let's go through this again. Describe what you saw to me."

Dean shrugs. Sam wants detail, and he doesn't want to give it. _Hey, so I saw you bleeding from the face and then I watched you burn to death in front of me. I think I can still taste the smell in the back of my throat. By the way, did you get any doughnuts while you were out?_

"Just, you know..." he waves his arm vaguely. "You were there, standing over my bed. I could see everything perfectly, just like that night at the hospital with Joe. You didn't say anything. I think there was something behind me, but I didn't get a good look at it. There was some blood, and then...there was some fire, I think. My hands went right through you." Sam doesn't say anything, and the moment starts to become uncomfortable. "Dude, I wasn't asleep, okay? I would swear to it. I turned the light on. I saw the room." He is grasping for any details he can remember now, desperate to make Sam understand that this had really happened. "Okay, your blue jacket was hanging from one of the chairs at this table. The pizza box is in the trash in the corner over there –" he waves his arm vaguely in the right direction "– and it's too big for the trashcan. There's a picture of the goddamn ugliest horse I've ever seen over the TV. Sam? You hear me?"

Sam finally stirs across from him. "Yeah," he says quietly. "I believe you. You weren't dreaming. But...that doesn't mean you were seeing my dreams."

Dean raises an eyebrow at that. "Okay, fair enough. So you weren't dreaming right before you woke up." Sam doesn't say anything in reply, and he presses. "Sam?"

"That's not what I said." Dean hears Sam push away from the table and stand to pace the room. "Maybe I was, I don't know."

"Well, it's the only thing I can think of that fits what happened," Dean says. "And it explains what I saw at the hospital with Joe. He never woke up and showed me his bike and walked out of that hospital. He just dreamed that he did."

"You could be right about that," Sam grudgingly admits. "What else do you expect a biker who just had his leg cut off to dream about?"

"Exactly! But you're going to stand there and tell me that the same thing didn't happen just now. Come on, Sam. What did you dream about? Dude, this could be important."

"God, Dean! Okay, fine, yes. I was having a dream when you woke me up. But I don't remember any details, and I don't remember you being there." Sam comes back over to the table, and Dean listens as he collapses back down onto the chair.

"Okay," Dean says quietly. "Well, I guess that's a start. So you're the smart one. What do you think it means"? Sam doesn't answer, and Dean feels more than hears his brother stiffen in the chair across from him. "Sam, you okay?"

When Sam still doesn't speak, Dean stretches out a hand across the table and finds Sam with his hands interlocked, long fingers rubbing restlessly at the faint scar that cuts across the palm of his right hand. _Shit_. Dean pulls Sam's fingers away and squeezes down himself, hard enough to hurt, hard enough to ground Sam to reality. Sam takes a gasping breath and the tension in his hands eases a bit. Dean pulls back.

"Okay?" he asks.

"Fine," Sam answers, and that's that. He doesn't need to ask what Sam is seeing, and Sam doesn't need to tell him. He feels a sharp pang of guilt that his questions may have triggered a hallucination. 

"We don't have to talk about this," he continues, giving Sam an out.

"No," Sam says. "You're right, it could be important. I just...I don't want you in my head like that, man."

And even though Dean wants nothing more than to not bear witness to the nightmares in his brother's mind, it still hurts to hear Sam say it out loud. "Feeling's mutual," he says brusquely. "Sorry, it's not really something I can control."

"No, I didn't mean..." Sam breaks off and sighs in frustration. "You shouldn't have to go through that. I have a pretty good idea of what you saw, and...dude, that's my mess. You shouldn't have to deal with it."

_It's not a big deal_ , he wants to say. _I can handle it_. Except that Dean isn't sure that he can. Monsters he can deal with. Give him a demon, and he can dispatch it at a moment's notice. Give him something with an ass he can kick and it's all good. But he's completely out of his depth when it comes to helping his brother pick through the damaged pieces of his own psyche. Most of the time he has no idea if what he does is helping or hurting, and every time Sam seems to make progress it's like he's back to square one the next week. The enforced helplessness is painful for Dean, having to sit back and watch Sam struggle. Being able to see into his nightmares but not be able to do a damn thing to affect them? Well, that's just the icing on the very shitty cake, isn't it?

So, no. He doesn't know if he can handle it. Rather, he doesn't know how to handle it without making things worse for Sam. His own coping mechanisms, developed over years of struggle, don't always seem to mesh with the way Sam's mind works, and sometimes he lives in fear of saying or doing the exact wrong thing, being the trigger that blows the cracks in Sam's mind irreparably wide apart. Unfortunately, the alternative is sitting back and watching Sam struggle on his own, which isn't any easier. It's a shit sandwich no matter which was you look at it.

"I know what it's like to dream of hell," Dean finally says. It doesn't make things better, but it has the benefit of being true. And maybe this way Sam won't worry about what Dean is seeing.

"Yeah," is all Sam says in reply. And maybe Dean imagines it, but Sam sounds just the tiniest bit better.

Dean's earlier elation about his revelation doesn't last past lunchtime. Even having an extra clue involving shared dreams doesn't seem to help them pin down what creature has done this to him. Sam surrounds himself with a fortress of books on one of the beds, leaving Dean increasingly antsy and full of nervous energy.

"I'm going to go take a walk around the building," he finally says, feeling his way along the wall until he comes to the place on the floor where he remembers he had left his boots.

"Okay, give me a few minutes," Sam says vaguely. "I'm in the middle of something."

Dean blows out an annoyed breath. "No, I mean _I'm_ going to take a walk. You sit there and...do your thing. I'll be back in a bit." He slides his boots on, wonders where he's left his jacket, thinks about asking Sam, then decides that he doesn't really need it that badly.

"Uh, Dean..." Sam is standing up now, if the change of position in his voice is anything to go by. "I don't know – do you think that's a good idea?"

"I'm not an idiot, Sam," he says patiently, patting his pocket to make sure he has his cell phone with him. "I'll keep my hand on the wall and count the doors as I pass. But thanks for looking after me, mom." He lets his voice slide into a shitty sarcastic tone, and sure enough Sam bristles at it.

"Dude, I'm just trying to help. What is your problem?"

"Look, Sam, I appreciate the help –" and he does his best to sound sincere, honest to God, "– but you need to let me do some of this shit on my own. What do you think is going to happen when we catch up to the bitch that did this to me, huh? I'm just going to sit in the corner out of the way like a good little boy while you take her on?"

"Why, because you think I can't handle it on my own? Dean, why don't you just trust me for once?"

"It's not about trusting you!" he yells in frustration. Motherfucking Sam, getting everything wrong as usual. "It's about me being able to do what I'm best at. What part of this are you having a problem with?"

"Oh, I don't know." And if Dean is king of the shitty sarcasm, Sam is master of the freaking universe. "Maybe it's the fact that you've been on this self-destructive kick for months now that is getting really fucking old. Maybe I don't trust you not to get yourself hurt."

"Dude, I just want to take a fucking walk!"

"Yeah, have fun with that," Sam snarls. "I'll be back later."

"Wait, what are you...Sam!"

The door slams and Dean is alone in the motel room. He hears the roar of the engine outside as Sam tears out of the parking lot, leaving him behind with his angry thoughts and nowhere to vent them.

And he has no goddamn idea where his key card is, so he can't even take that walk after all.

"Fuck you, Sam!" he shouts at the top of his lungs, stalking over to Sam's bed. He misjudges the distance and the bed frame whacks him painfully in the shin, making him even angrier. He sweeps his arms across the bed and sends all of Sam's books and notes tumbling to the floor in disarray. It isn't enough, not by a long shot, and in a rage he tears Sam's bed to pieces, ripping the sheets and blankets off and sending the mattress to sprawl half on the frame, half on the floor. He kicks at the frame over and over with the sole of his heavy boots, letting the dull thud work some of the anger from his system. Finally he collapses back onto his own bed, rage making way to a kind of dull despair.

Because when he thinks about it, he wonders what good he will actually be in a fight. What the hell use is he, in his current condition? Forget the creature that did this to him – does he really think he'll be able to go up against Dick Roman and his minions like this? He'll probably get his ass killed in about ten seconds – and Sam's too, for that matter.

Maybe it would be for the best to let Sam handle it on its own. Maybe it would be for the best to just let Sam _be_ on his own.

_You're no good like this. A baby vampire could take you out right now. It would probably be better that way, in the long run...._

Sam will be sad, no doubt, but he'll get over it. And he'll be better without having to take care of Dean's pathetic ass. Maybe the quick hunter's death is in his near future after all. Maybe it won't be such a bad thing.

He doesn't know how long he sits there, dark thoughts circling his brain like predators. The longer he sits there the weaker and more depressed he feels and the more he hates himself. It's a vicious circle he can't seem to break free from, and after a while he wonders why he even bothers trying.

By the time the motel door quietly opens again, hours could have passed. Dean has no freaking idea, locked in a despair made all the deeper by his complete inability to even read a clock to tell the passage of time. Sam draws in a sharp breath when he sees the ruin of his bed, but he doesn't say anything. He comes in and sits on the end of Dean's bed, just far enough away for Dean to not feel claustrophobic. He thinks about kicking Sam off the goddamn bed anyway.

They sit in silence for a long minute, and for once Dean is perversely glad of the blindness that means that he doesn't have to work to avoid looking at Sam's face.

"I'm scared for you," Sam finally says into the quiet of the room. "I'm not worried that you can't take of yourself. Man, you're the most capable hunter I've ever known. Even...even blind, you know? You could kick the ass of just about anything without breaking a sweat, even like this. So it's not about you not being able to fight, or not being able to handle things like that, because I know you can.

"I'm scared because...I know you. I know how much you hate this. And I'm worried that you might've already checked out. I know these past few years have been rough. Understatement," he says, with a weak chuckle. "I'm not in the least bit worried about you in a fight, man. But I'm scared as hell that you might think that being like this is just not worth it. I'm worried that you might think that suicide by monster is a better option, or that I should think about hiding the weapons stash when I go out."

Dean stirs at that. "I wouldn't do that to you," he says honestly. He doesn't think he can say much at the moment, but he can say that. Dark thoughts aside, he couldn't leave a mess for Sam to clean up like that.

"Sam," he says, "I'm just trying to think realistically. We're chasing some pretty bad mojo these days. The way I am right now...."

"You promised me," Sam says quietly. "You promised me you'd try. You going to back out on that?"

There are two things Dean Winchester doesn't back down from: a challenge, and a promise to his baby brother. Damn Sam for knowing his weaknesses.

"No. I promise I'll try."

Sam comes back from his lunch run with hamburgers and news. For once, Dean doesn't care much about the former.

"Felicia called me," Sam says, a note of clear excitement in his voice. "You know, Dr. Cortes who did the autopsy on the three victims? There's been another death. Same MO and everything."

"I know you didn't just sound happy about that," Dean teases. Things have been a bit lighter between him and Sam since yesterday. He hadn't shared Sam's dream last night, whether because Sam didn't dream at all or because Sam has barely slept since, Dean isn't sure. He suspects the latter.

"Shut up," Sam says. "I told her we'd meet her back at the morgue this afternoon. There may be some extra evidence this time, something that will let us know what we're dealing with and how we can take her down. We can probably be ready to go in an hour."

"Sounds good," Dean says, and he means it. He has gone over his own experience in his head so many times that he's almost grateful for a fresh opportunity. Of course, the fourth victim probably wouldn't say the same thing. "You know, we're going to have to come up with an explanation for..." he waves his hand vaguely in front of his own face and hears Sam swallow.

"I know."

The bathroom counter is too small to sit on comfortably, but somehow Dean manages it. He squirms into a more stable position and listens to the hiss of the tap running as the water warms. As he changes position one last time, he feels himself starting to lose his balance. Sam's heavy hand clamps down on his shoulder, holding him in place.

"Sit still, would you? Your ass is going to end up in the toilet if you keep moving."

Dean subsides with a sigh and listens to Sam fuss with the faucet. The hiss of aerosol is the only warning he gets before he feels the cool shaving cream smear across his cheek. He flinches instinctively, then settles back and lets Sam spread it across his chin and under his nose.

The bathroom itself is really too small for two full-grown men. Even though Dean can't see the surrounding walls, he can sense the size from the flat quality of the sound and the way Sam seems to loom over him. He lets his eyes fall to half-mast and starts to zone out as Sam finishes with the shaving cream and grasps Dean's chin gently between thumb and forefinger.

"Hold still," he instructs again.

The rasp of the razor across his beard is surprisingly loud in the quiet of the small room. Dean holds his breath at first, but Sam's fingers are sure and steady and he finds himself relaxing into the rhythm. Sam tilts his head back and Dean goes with it trustingly.

He can remember a time not so long ago when he would never have allowed his brother to hold a sharp object to his throat.

Sam's fingers bleed heat into the thin skin of Dean's neck, and Dean holds his breath as the razor skims his Adam's apple. He remembers suddenly a time not long after Sam had left for college, when he and his dad had been hunting a poltergeist outside of Memphis. Dean had been thrown against the side of a mausoleum and shattered his right wrist, spraining the left one as well. The pain is a distant memory, but he still vividly recalls the godawful tedium of being stuck for weeks with his wrists in casts. After watching Dean cut his face to shreds trying to shave himself, Dad had rolled his eyes and plunked Dean down at the kitchen table and done the job himself. Dean can remember the sunlight spilling through the window and across his father's face as he held the razor tightly, eyes squinted in concentration. As soon as the job was done Dean had grabbed the towel and patted his own face dry, scowling at the indignity of being treated like a thirteen year old. Dad, though, had gotten a twisted smile that made Dean assume that he was thinking of Sam again. His father's words had surprised him, however.

"You remind me a lot of your mom, kiddo."

Sam's hands are larger than their father's had been, not as callused. He hums tunelessly under his breath as he works, and Dean doesn't think he's even aware that he's doing it. Dean closes his eyes and lets Sam tilt his head, leaning in to the warm, coffee-scented breath that blows across his face. He tries to picture Sam doing this for his own son the way his dad had done it for him, but Dean can't quite bring the image to life. He can't even remember if having kids one day is something that Sam even wants. Probably not – Sam's always been clear that being raised the way they were fucked him over in numerous ways, and it's not like either of them have a lot of role models of normality to draw from. Plus, kids would mean potential hostages for the likes of Dick Roman, which is not something Dean even wants to think about.

Besides, they each had their own chance at domesticity and lost it long ago. That ship has sailed, and their world has constricted. Everyone is dead – gods and angels, parents and parent-figures, close friends, lovers. Everyone except the two of them, Sam and Dean, whirling along in their own little orbit as the world burns around them. And even though Dean knows he'll keep fucking it up, keep forcing Sam to leave, they'll always be drawn back together. They've each died in the presence of the other, and Dean knows that when he finally leaves this piece of shit world for good that Sam will be with him when it happens.

Thus it was, and thus it ever shall be. The Gospel of the Winchesters, as written by the Prophet Chuck.

The rough motel towel wipes away the last traces of shaving cream, and Sam steps back with a hum of satisfaction. Dean feels his own chin. It's a closer shave than what he would do himself, but there are no cuts or rough spots. He nods in approval at a job well done – no words necessary – and Sam gives his shoulder a squeeze and leaves him to his thoughts.

Dean's dress shoes squeak on the floor with every step he takes, a minor irritation compared to the indignity of having to hold on to Sam's elbow as he walks. He'd donned a pair of sunglasses before he entered the morgue, but he doesn't think he's fooling anyone. He wonders if anyone is looking at him. He wonders what they're thinking.

He knows they have entered the examination room when the shape of the air seems to change around them and the familiar smells assert themselves.

"Agents," a familiar female voice says. "Thank you for coming back."

Dean nods in what he hopes is the right general direction and hopes that it doesn't look strange if he keeps the glasses on inside. "Dr. Cortes," he says confidently. "I understand there's been another death. Why don't you tell me what happened?"

There's a long pause, and when she speaks again there's a chill to her voice. "I don't know, Agent Hill. Why don't you tell me what's happened to your eyes since the last time I saw you? There's no way you should be out in the field with an injury like that."

_Damn it_. "Uh," Sam starts, clearly at a loss, "it's just a temporary...."

"The creature that's killed at least four people in this town did this to me," Dean interrupts. Dead silence follows his words, and he shrugs. "Look, Dr. Cortes, I know you're not an idiot, so I'm going to give it to you straight. Something is killing those people – something not human. We know how to take care of it. That's what we do."

"Dean," Sam hisses. Dean ignores him.

"You've seen the missing hearts," Dean says. "What killed those people is not humanly possible. You still don't have an explanation for it, do you?"

"I don't," she says reluctantly. "But I don't know why I should take your word for it that some...nonhuman _creature_ is the cause. What do you mean by that? An animal?"

"A spirit," Sam says softly. "Maybe a ghost, or a demi-god. We don't know for sure. But these were supernatural deaths, of that we're certain."

"You know what I think is much more likely?" And man, does she sound pissed off now, the type of biting _you're wasting my time_ anger that Dean is familiar with from so many authority figures. "I think that the two of you are involved in these deaths, and this is all some kind of sick game on your part."

Dean braces himself, wondering if they are going to have to make a run for it and if he'll just end up slowing Sam down.

"I promise you..." Sam starts, but Dr. Cortes interrupts him.

"Take off your glasses, please...Dean, was it?"

Not seeing any other option, Dean obeys. He feels small fingers tilting his head downward, then a click of some device being turned on.

"Pen light," Sam mutters to him under his breath.

He can't see the light, but whatever Dr. Cortes is using the device to see appears to satisfy her. "Well, you're not faking that," she says, a note of sympathy in her voice. "And you certainly weren't hurt like that the last time I saw you. You get injured often in your line of work?"

"Often enough," Sam answers. She sighs out a heavy breath.

"I don't know if I believe you," she finally says, after a pause that has Dean's stomach swimming in acid. "But for now, I'll take you at your word that you're here to help. At this point, I'm completely out of options, and the local cops are lost. If you can do anything to keep more of our people alive...well. Come on, let me show you the latest victim."

Eric Martinez, forty-eight, had lived alone until his sister arrived for a planned visit to find her brother dead in his bed.

"The heart is gone, same methodology as the three previous victims," Dr. Cortes says as they stand over the body. Dean trusts that Sam will mention anything important out loud. "His medical history is fairly benign – diagnosed with melanoma a few years back, but it was caught early and he responded well to treatment."

"Did you see the crime scene?" Sam asks. "Was there anything unusual there?"

"Hmmm," she muses. "The cops didn't pick up on anything, so I don't know that I'd be able to help you there. I'm not quite sure what 'unusual' means in your line of work."

"Were there any flowers?"

"Yes," she says in surprise after a moment's thought. "There was a vase next to the bed. Purple bellflowers and some kind of yellow blossom I'm not familiar with. I remember thinking it was an odd combination. Why? Is that important?"

It's a shame that he and Sam can't exchange a meaningful glance, because this certainly calls for it.

"It might be, yeah," Sam says. "We need to start looking into a few things. Will you please call us if you can think of anything else? Anything at all, no matter how minor, even if it seems like it doesn't make any sense. Any impressions, any memories...any dreams, even."

"All right," Dr. Cortes says, sounding slightly dazed. "I'll do my best."

"Dreams?" Dean mutters to Sam on their way out. "What's up with that?" He can feel Sam shrug through the arm he holds.

"Just a hope," Sam says. "We need all the help we can get."


	6. Days Ten and Beyond

"I remember you from my dream last night," Sam says across the breakfast table. His voice sounds hoarse, as if he had been the one screaming right along with Dean. Neither of them had been able to fall back asleep after Dean had again watched Sam burn alive in front of him. Dean is almost hoping that they won't have to make any life or death decisions today. Both of them are running on fumes.

But Sam's revelation is potentially interesting news. "You remember?" Dean asks. That could be useful to know, although he has no idea how at the moment.

Sam nods. "It's kind of jumbled – you know how dreams are. I remember you asking me if I knew who you were."

"Yeah. You were kind of...out of it," Dean says delicately. Sam snorts.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," he says softly.

"Nothing to be sorry for, Sammy."

The ringing telephone makes them both jump. Sam fumbles for his phone before answering it. "Hi, Dr. Cortes? Yeah. Yeah, no problem. Uh, hang on, I'm going to put you on speaker." Dean hears a soft thud as Sam's phone is placed in the middle of the table. "Okay, go ahead," Sam continues. "Dean's here with me."

"Hi, Dean," Dr. Cortes says, her voice sounding tinny through the cell phone's speakers. "I'm not sure why I'm calling you, but...you said to contact you if anything weird happened. If I had any dreams."

"That's right," Dean says. "Did anything happen?"

She laughs, and it isn't a happy sound. "Look, to tell you the truth, I think my subconscious is playing tricks on me. Dreams don't really mean anything except that your brain is trying to work through whatever garbage you dumped into it over the previous few days. But you said 'anything', and this was more vivid than any dream I can remember having, so...

"I was visiting my mother's grave – except that it was in a cemetery I didn't recognize. Wherever it was, it wasn't around here. There were lots of trees, green grass, and a beautiful clear lake with bushes growing around it. It was very peaceful. A woman came up to me while I was watching birds fly over the lake."

"A woman?" Dean interrupts. "What did she look like?"

"She was tall – probably as tall as you guys. Long dark hair, these weird pale green eyes, really intense. I remember she was dressed in white. Is...is that useful?"

Dean swallows, and a shiver runs up his back. "Yeah," he says through a dry mouth. "I think it might be. What happened next?"

"She asked me what I thought of the lake. I said it was beautiful, and she seemed happy to hear that. She said it was hers, and that it was dying. It made me so sad to hear that – I don't know why. She asked me if I wanted to help her save it, and she looked so happy when I said yes. She picked a flower from the edge of the lake and gave it to me. It was one of those bellflowers you asked about yesterday."

"Wow," Sam says. "Okay. I know you may not believe this, but that is actually incredibly helpful. Do you think you could call you later? We may have to do some research now, but we'll probably have a couple more questions then. Is that okay?"

"Sure, if you think it will help. I've got some work to do, so I'll probably be there for the rest of the day."

"One more thing," Dean interrupts. "Did this woman give you her name?"

"No," Dr. Cortes says. "Sorry. But she said she's see me again. She seemed so...grateful."

When the call ends, they sit in silence for a long moment.

"She's going to be the next victim, isn't she?" Dean says.

"Not if we can help it," Sam says firmly, getting up from the table. Dean can hear him paging through one of Bobby's books that he had piled next to his bed. "I can't believe I didn't make the connection earlier, but I was looking at _local_ legends to see if anything clicked. No wonder it didn't – whoever she is, she isn't from around here." The page-flipping stops, and Sam grunts in satisfaction.

"What is it? What have you got?"

"There are legends from Europe, centuries old, of spirits attached to bodies of water – sprites, nixies, things like that. One in particular speaks of a water spirit who spoke to nearby villagers in their dreams, giving them gifts in exchange for their worship. Literally, if they 'gave her their hearts'."

"That's not at all dire," Dean mutters.

"She was called the Gift Giver," Sam says, his voice rising in excitement. "And the legend said that she took her power from the dreams of those around her. It was considered a good omen if she appeared in your dreams."

"Well, that doesn't sound right," Dean says with a frown. "Unless 'good omen' means 'rip your heart out of its chest without leaving a mark'. And if you're right, what in the hell is she doing all the way over here? This place isn't exactly water central, you know?"

"Well, we've seen it before," Sam argues. "People come to this country and bring their gods and legends with them. Sometimes the thing they're worshiping turns out to be all too real."

"Maybe," Dean accepts. "But I highly doubt anyone around here is worshiping water spirits in this day and age. Come on, Sam. You did most of the research. Is this the first time she's popped up?"

It takes them most of the rest of the morning to search local databases, Sam paging through the ancient microfilm reader at the tiny local library while Dean sits next to him and listens intently to whatever Sam has to report. The basement room is tiny and as cold as a morgue after the dry heat of the desert outside. Dean hunches his shoulder and turns up his collar, jamming his hands into the pockets of his jacket.

"Looks like this isn't her first visit to this area," Sam finally says, pausing the reader. "Fifty years ago there were a number of deaths reported. A serial killer was suspected but no one was ever arrested. There were...five deaths, it looks like."

"Missing hearts?" Dean asks.

"Yeah. And there's a reference to an earlier crime fifty years before that – a century ago now. The records don't go that far back, but how much do you want to bet our mystery woman has been doing the same thing for at least that long?"

"And what is she doing in the meantime? Hibernating?"

"Actually, that may be right," Sam says. "Hang on." From the shuffling sound, Sam is rifling through his backpack. "Some of these old spirits, they need us to survive – our attention, our worship, our hearts. When this spirit made her way over here..."

"...she found people to give her their hearts. Literally," Dean finishes. "In this day and in this place – no water, no worshippers – she needs something stronger to survive. Like, literal hearts. And then she's good for the next fifty years."

Sam sighs, dropping the book on the table. "So what do we do now?" he asks. "It looks like she's priming Felicia to be her fifth victim. This could be our last chance to kill her for another fifty years. But how do we do it? Last time she pretty much kicked our asses. Salt had no effect on her, and iron didn't seem to do much either."

Dean thinks back to that night, the way she held him so effortlessly by the neck and burned the sight out of him with her strong hands.

_Now you can see_ , she had whispered to him.

"Sam," he says carefully, "give Felicia a call. I have an idea."

"This is a really bad idea," Sam complains as they pull up to the adobe house on the outskirts of town. The sun had set several hours ago, and the night is cool and calm. Small rocks crunch under Dean's feet as Sam leads him to the front door.

"Maybe," Dean concedes. "But do you have a better one?"

Sam knocks, and Dean hears the door open.

"Sam, Dean. Come on in." Felicia sounds more than a little unsure, and Dean can't really blame her. Inviting two strange men into your home who claim to be monster-fighters when you have every indication that they've been lying to you the whole time? Yeah, not exactly the smartest thing to do. He won't be at all surprised if it turns out she's holding pepper spray or something even more lethal behind her back.

"Thanks, Doc," Dean says, trying to sound as unthreatening as possible, feeling carefully with his feet for the sill before stepping inside.

"I think you can call me Felicia now," she says, a dry amusement shading her voice.

"Thanks for having us," Sam says politely, and Dean fights the urge to roll his eyes. _Dork_. "Actually, I'm kind of surprised you agreed to this."

"No offense, but I wasn't going to," she says wryly. "But then I found a bouquet of these on my desk this afternoon." Dean hears the rustle of what sounds like plants.

"Campanula and witch-hazel," Sam murmurs to Dean.

"I'm still not sure if I believe this whole thing or not," she says, "but...let's just say that I'm edging toward the 'better safe than sorry' camp. So, what do you want me to do?"

"We want you to go to sleep," Sam says. Dean winces. Yeah, this request will definitely bring the trust, no question. "This spirit visits people in their dreams," Sam continues, oblivious to Dean's internal monologue, "and we know this is where she's going to be. When she shows up, we'll take care of her."

"Okay," Felicia says after a long pause, letting out a shaky breath. "And how will you know when she gets here, if she'll be in my dreams?"

"I'll be asleep too, hopefully dreaming right along with you," Sam says. "If she's as tied to the dream world as she seems, then she should pull us both in with her."

"Okay, I guess." She doesn't sound too sure, but so far she seems to be handling things better than many civilians they've dealt with. "And what will you be doing while Sam and I dream?" 

This is apparently directed to Dean. "Making sure she gets her ass handed to her," he says.

"So a centuries-old spirit is going to be taken down by two sleeping people and a blind guy?" she asks skeptically. "No offense. And after all that, you expect me to just go to bed and fall to sleep like normal? Right now I don't think I could sleep if you paid me."

"Yeah, we thought of that," Sam says. Dean hears the rattle of pills as Sam holds up the small sealed bottle they purchased at the drug store before driving out to Felicia's house. "Melatonin, for both of us."

"I've had pretty vivid dreams on this stuff," she says, and Dean nods.

"Even better."

The armchair that Sam directs Dean to is comfortable, sitting low to the ground with plenty of cushions.

"I'm going to be over here," Sam says from about three feet to Dean's right. "I'm on the couch, and this is where I'll be sleeping. There's a coffee table in front of the couch, and a table with a lamp on your left hand side. The opposite wall is about twelve feet in front of you – there are some bookshelves there, a TV, that sort of thing. The door to Felicia's room is on the wall to your right, and the front door is on your left. Got it?"

"Good enough," Dean grunts. He's trying to picture the room, more than a little sure that he's got it entirely wrong. "I'm not really planning on moving until that bitch shows up."

He hears Sam settle down on the couch, shuffling around until he arranges himself as comfortably as he can. Sam huffs a heavy sigh, and Dean smirks as he imagines Sam practically folded in half, big feet all over Felicia's cushions. Well, it serves him right for being so freaking oversized.

"What if I can't sleep either?" Sam asks after a few minutes of silence.

"Then you'll miss all the fun with Felicia and her water spirit, and you won't let that happen," Dean answers. "Besides, you've barely slept at all for about three days now. Trust me, dude. You'll sleep."

Sam is quiet after that, and before too long his breathing evens out. Dean listens to the soft, nighttime sounds of the house around him. He's wound too tightly, he realizes, so ready for a possible threat that every sound has him twitching. He forces himself to relax and breathe more deeply, unconsciously matching Sam's sleeping breaths.

The wood of the armchair is smooth under his fingers as he runs his hand up along the grain. He wonders idly if this is what their future hunts will look like – Sam directing Dean to his waiting place, describing the location and patting him on the head like a little kid – and he fights back the despair that still threatens to swallow him. _I promised I'd try._

He doesn't know how much time passes – it feels like an hour – but between one blink and the next he's no longer in Felicia's living room.

He's sitting in an open meadow dotted with gravestones – the cemetery Felicia had described, apparently. He can see the deep green of the grass and the blue sky overhead streaked by wisps of cloud that move in the light breeze. Ahead of him is a lake, filled to the brim with clear water. As before, the colors seem almost unbearably vivid after days of utter blackness, and for a moment he just lets his eyes soak up the colors that mean things are alive and growing. It's a peaceful place, the silence unbroken by the sound of bird or insect, but the beauty just makes Dean more wary. He's seen too much to take the apparent tranquility at face value.

"Showtime," he mutters, standing and looking around for a rock or a branch. He doesn't expect either to be particularly useful, but he feels naked without a weapon in his hand. Sam, naturally, is nowhere in sight. It would be futile to expect the universe to cut them a break right when they need it.

"It's lovely, isn't it?"

He starts, not having heard Felicia come up next to him. "Yeah, nice," he replies. "Not sure it's worth your heart, though."

"Do you know where we are?" She's looking around with a small smile on her face, and he can't really blame her for enjoying the view. It's a far cry from the wild beauty of the deserts and mountains where she lives.

"Honestly?" Dean looks around. "I think we're still in your house. Whatever is powering this dream is strong enough to change its appearance, but that's all."

"My child," a deep, melodic voice says. Dean and Felicia turn to see a tall woman with pale eyes walking toward them carrying a bouquet of bellflowers and witch-hazel. "You have brought a supplicant. How thoughtful." She looks exactly as Dean remembers her, and a rush of anger makes his fists clench in anticipation.

"No," Dean growls, "she brought someone who's going to stop your little harvest."

She pauses, as if seeing Dean for the first time, then smiles a malicious smile.

"My broken little hunter," she sneers. "First you desecrate my altars, then you invade my dream. I thought you would have learned your lesson."

"Yeah, what can I say?" Dean says. "Lessons always bored me." He lets his eyes scan the horizon quickly. _Come on, Sam. Where are you?_

"You have no claim here," the woman says, beckoning Felicia forward with a wave of her hand. Felicia walks forward slowly, as if in a daze. "I am only taking from her what she has freely offered. She is alone, as am I. They are all alone. I offer them a gift, and my everlasting gratitude."

"I'm sure that gratitude means a hell of a lot to them when they're dead," Dean shoots back. He strides forward and tries to take Felicia's arm, but just as had been the case in Sam's dream, his hand goes right through her. The woman laughs and throws out her arm in a brutal gesture. She hasn't even touched him, but Dean goes sailing through the air as if he has been thrown. He lands hard against one of the trees and gasps for breath, the wind knocked out of him.

"You're not dreaming, little boy," she says. "You can only watch the dreams of others. You have no power over me in this realm."

"Yeah," he croaks. "Maybe not. But I'll bet _he_ does."

Dean smiles in vicious satisfaction as the woman turns to find Sam standing directly behind her. She cocks her head at him curiously, and at the knife he holds.

"You think you can harm me? I have visited the dreams of thousands upon thousands. The dreams of humans hold no terror for me."

Sam drops the knife and raises his arms, gathering the woman close to him in a parody of a lover's embrace. He winds his long arms around her back and digs his nails into her skin, gritting his teeth with the effort to hold her as she struggles to pull away. She shrieks in his ear and claws at his face, but cannot break free.

"Maybe," he rasps into her ear. "But what about the dreams of angels?"

Sam closes his eyes, and Dean watches in horror as he bursts into flames. The tranquil lake and meadows surrounding them twist into a landscape of rock and iron, dark shadows filled with spitting fire and the wail of lost souls. All beauty has vanished, completely engulfed by the power of Sam's nightmare. The woman in Sam's arms shrieks as she ignites, burning like a roman candle. She fights wildly in Sam's embrace as Hellfire blackens her skin and roasts her flesh. 

And then, with a final wail of helpless, tormented anger, she vanishes.

"Sam," Dean croaks, standing up and approaching his brother. "Sammy, can you hear me?"

"Oh my God," Felicia says from somewhere behind Dean. "Where are we? What's happening to Sam?" 

Apparently the spell on her broke when the spirit was vanquished. Her voice shakes, testament to the horror of their surroundings, and Dean finds himself unaccountably angry that she is there to bear witness to his brother's nightmares. This is _Sam's_ , not something that a stranger should see.

"Felicia, I need you to wake up now," Dean says firmly, not looking away from Sam for an instant. Blood bubbles at the corners of Sam's lips, drying away immediately in the flames and leaving his mouth stained a deep red.

"What? I don't know how to..."

"You can if you want to, I promise you," he almost yells at her. "Go, now!"

The silence indicates that she must have succeeded, somehow, but Dean doesn't turn aside to check. Sam is still in front of him wreathed in flame, his lip curled in agony. With a cry, Sam falls to his hands and knees. His outstretched fingers are badly blackened, bits of white bone showing where the flesh has charred away. Dean forces himself to his knees as well, watching through a wash of tears as his brother's face melts away in front of him.

"Sam, this is a dream," he says firmly, and it feels as if the words are torn from his throat. It almost aches too badly for him to say anything at all. "This is not real. Do you understand?"

Sam's eyes are open and lost, no spark of recognition. The cold light of Hell shines in their depths, but Dean refuses to look away.

"Sammy, it's me," he says as firmly as he can, refusing to break eye contact. "Remember what I told you? You need to remember what's real. This is not real. I need you to come back, Sam. I need you to wake up."

He wonders if it's already too late, if this is the time Sam gets so lost in his nightmares that he never reawakens.

_No_ , Dean thinks fiercely. _That's not happening. Not today._

"Sam!" he calls, voice high and panicked, and watches in relief as Sam's head finally snaps up.

"Dean," Sam croaks.

The landscape twists one last time, and Dean experiences a rush of nausea that almost makes him pass out before he finds himself sprawled on the floor of Felicia's living room.

Behind him on the sofa, Sam gasps himself awake and struggles to his feet.

"Dean," Sam says, taking him by the arm and dragging him to his feet. "Dude, are you okay?"

Dean looks up at Sam, Sam who stands in front of him whole and unbroken. The lights of Felicia's house shine around them, warm and comforting, and Dean lets his eyes track across the room in relief. They've done it.

"Hey," Sam says, shaking Dean slightly, and Dean looks back up at his brother...and realizes he is _looking_ at his brother, looking at _Sam_ , and that they're both awake. He sees in Sam's eyes the moment he realizes it too. Sam smiles, deep dimples cutting lines into his cheeks. 

"Dean, can you see me?"

"Hey, Sammy," Dean says, his throat tight. His face hurts, he's smiling so hard. "You really need a haircut, man."

And then Sam is embracing him, laughing right in his ear, and Dean laughs in return for what feels like the first time in months. The satisfaction of a job well done is such a tiny thing compared to the overwhelming joy of being able to see again, and Dean just clings to Sam and laughs like an idiot.

"I guess this means we won," Felicia says, coming out of her bedroom with tired eyes and a smile on her face.

The air outside seems brighter, cleaner. The stars shine overhead too numerous to count, and Dean allows himself a long moment to just look at them and admire the sight he hadn't thought he'd ever see again.

"You ready to go?" Sam asks, patiently watching the night sky right along with him. Dean nods and holds up his hand.

"Keys, man. I'm not letting you behind the wheel again for a long time."

"I knew it," Sam says, rolling his eyes, and tosses Dean the keys and obediently heads for the passenger seat. Dean opens the door and sits down but doesn't start the engine yet, just takes the opportunity to savor the feel of the steering wheel beneath his fingers, his brother beside him, the open road ahead.

"Sam," he finally says, then stops, at a loss for words. "I wasn't easy to be around." It's an apology, even though he can't quite speak the words. Luckily Sam knows exactly what he's trying to say.

"No, you weren't," Sam agrees. "But I wouldn't have been any better. In fact, I probably would have been worse. And, you know...thank you."

Dean squints at him. "For what?"

"For waking me up," Sam says quietly, staring ahead through the windshield. "I wish you hadn't had to see any of that. But if someone had to...."

Luckily, Dean knows exactly what Sam is trying to say right back.

"Come on," he says, turning the key and letting the roar of the engine soothe the aches in his muscles. The road stretches out ahead of them, dark and straight and perfect under the shadows of the night. "We have work to do."


End file.
